“What then?”
“Why, we’d take his catboat and overhaul them. They’ll probably stick going about and the wind’s dead against going out. But Dan——”
“Isn’t here, but I am. I’ll go forward with the gun and you can handle the Stella. Let’s go!”
They went. It was but the work of a few minutes to gain the landing, hoist sail, cast off and reach down the bay, the wind abeam. Bill got into a snug place at the mast, Gus held the tiller, each boy firmly determined to do something that might call for the utmost daring and swift action.
Turning into the wind at the inlet, the boys went about first on the starboard tack and then luffed a half dozen times to get through into the broader water; but the sand bars were erratic. Gus knew two that were fixed from the set currents; other might change every few days. Bill crept to the rail and gazed ahead; there had been a moon, but it was cloudy.
Fortune favored them, however. At the moment that they were about to hit a narrow sand bar, the clouds parted and Bill gave a yell. Gus also saw the line of white and shoved over his tiller, missing the bar by the closest margin. In deep water again they swept across the inlet as the clouds darkened the moon and they were suddenly confronted by a splotch of white. They swerved once more just in time to avoid striking the stern of a small schooner fast on a bar, only her jib flapping in the breeze, not a light showing.
Gus put the Stella’s head into the wind and close-hauled the boom, but she fell away slowly. He told Bill to hail, which was done with a truly sailor-like “Ahoy!” repeated many times, and followed by the landlubber’s “Hello, there!” but without getting an answer. Gus had to work around to get the wind so as to come up again. Still there was no reply to the hailing, and without more ado the Stella was put alongside of the schooner, going also aground, but lightly.
“You grapple and hold her, Bill. I’ll board her and see what’s what,” said Gus, pistol in hand, stepping over the schooner’s rail.
Swiftly, without hesitation, he rounded the cabin, peered down the small companion-way and shouted into the cabin, door, calling loudly. Then he went back, got the Stella’s lantern, and Bill, having made fast, limped along after, gun in hand. The two silently explored every nook and cranny finding, to their utter astonishment, no one aboard. The door to one of the staterooms, however, was fastened.
“I wonder if somebody is in there,” whispered Gus.