"Oh, well, if you're ashamed of your business—" retorted the fisherman, falling into a sullen silence.
This turn of affairs just suited Benson. He compressed his lips and sat back, looking out across the bay at the tug, which was at work some three miles away.
"Can you put on a little more speed?" inquired Jack.
"No," answered the fisherman, sulkily. "Doin' all the gait she'll kick now."
So Jack possessed his soul in patience until the wheezy little launch had covered the whole distance.
While still some two hundred yards off Jack caught sight of Major
Woodruff coming out of the after cabin of the tug.
"Ahoy, Major!" yelled the submarine boy, holding his hands to his lips.
"Perhaps you'd better stop work until I've reported."
Then the launch ran in alongside, and Jack stepped up to the deck of the tug, holding tightly to the loot he had taken from Millard.
The master of the launch manifested a disposition to hang about in the near vicinity, until curtly ordered away by Major Woodruff.
"I suppose you thought, Major, that I took a good deal upon myself in advising you to suspend work," Jack hinted. "Yet I've something to show you, and much to tell you. And I'm wagering an anchor to a fish-hook that you'll be glad you stationed me over on that neck of sand."