“Say, somebody’s calling for help! I can’t get it right, I reckon they’ve taken Tony away and out to sea again. Can’t tell who it’s from; it’s all jumbled, anyway. Done now, I guess.”
“But what was it?” asked Gus, now very wide awake.
“It came like this, in code,” said Bill. “The ‘S.O.S.’ several times. Then: ‘Aground. Rounding inlet, east channel, headed out. Hurry.’ There was a lot of stuff in between, but not intelligible.”
“Can it be Tony?”
“Who else?”
“But would they let him broadcast anything?”
“Gave them the slip, maybe.”
“What’ll we do?”
“You say it.”
“Well, then—rounding east channel of inlet, eh? Tide going out. Likely they’ll stick on the shoals. If only Dan were here now.”