“Under present ballast, seventeen-eight,” came the answer from the gunboat's signal mast.
“Safe anchorage,” Captain Jack signaled back.
“Can you meet us with a pilot?” questioned the on-coming gunboat.
“Yes,” Captain Jack responded.
“Do so,” came the laconic request.
“That's all, Hal,” the young skipper called, through the engine room speaking tube. “Want to row me out and put me aboard the gunboat?”
In another jiffy the two young chums had put off in the boat, Hal at the oars, Jack at the tiller ropes. The gunboat was now lying to, some seven hundred yards off the mouth of the little harbor. Hastings bent lustily to the oars, sending the boat over the rocking water until he was within a hundred yards of the steam craft's bridge.
[pg 034] “Gun boat ahoy!” roared Hal, between his hands. Then, by a slip of the tongue, and wholly innocent of any intentional offense, he bellowed:
“Is that the 'Dad' boat?”
“What's that?” came a sharp retort from the gunboat's bridge. “Don't try to be funny, young man!”