Boy Scouts in Southern Waters | Page 3

feel at all easy!"
"Why, what can make you uneasy?" put in Harry.
"I don't know," Jack answered. "I suppose it's only a notion due to indigestion after eating some of Tom's cookery, but I have a sort of uneasy feeling that something is going to happen and I want to be on deck when it comes. That's all!"
"Well, I'm about starved and so if this portentous calamity will please postpone its arrival until I get my lunch, I'll be much obliged!" remarked Arnold. "I'll go get dinner. I follow Jack on the cooking schedule. What'll it be, gentlemen?"
"More of that fine Red Snapper!" quickly answered Harry.
"If you boys can wait long enough, I'd like some of those famous biscuits Arnold knows so well how to make," added Tom.
"And I," said Jack, "would like a double portion of both of those and a cup of that excellent coffee we bought at Mobile."
"Wee, Mong Sewers! Zee Chef departs!" announced Arnold disappearing down the stairs leading to the cabin from whence in a short time the aroma of delicious coffee was wafted up to the three boys in the pilot house, each striving to peer farther into the fog which seemed to be getting thicker each passing moment.
"Seems to me I hear the booming of the surf on a jagged and rock bound coast," remarked Harry after an interval of silence following the wail of the Klaxon fog signal being sounded at regular intervals.
"Harry, you ought to be serious once in a while!" admonished Jack. "There are no rocks down in this part of the world. Everything is sand and lots of it. Besides the real coast is over here to our starboard hand side. You can't hear any surf there!"
"Maybe so, but I can hear what I believe to be the pounding of waves on a shore, just the same!" stoutly insisted Harry.
"Listen a minute," exclaimed Tom raising a hand for silence.
"There!" cried Harry after an interval. "There it is again!"
"Jack," Tom asked turning to his chum, "can you get it?"
With his face a trifle paler than was his wont, Jack nodded his head and with his lips closed tightly peered into the fog.
"Great Wigglin' Pollywogs!" ejaculated Tom. "If we're into a surf the Fortuna had better give up now! We can't ever expect to get out of that sort of a mess with this little rabbit!"
"Two times heavy on the dish washing for Thomas!" gloated Harry. "But we're not into the surf yet a while! Listen!"
His hand was held up again for silence. From the cabin came the sound of the clock striking the hour in nautical fashion.
"Five bells!" announced Jack.
"Let's see," mused Harry. "I never can get used to that."
"Ten thirty," Tom put in, "if it was a railroader; half past o'clock for you Dutchmen," he added with a chuckle, wrinkling a freckled nose at Harry and winking at Jack.
"All right!" assented Harry. "Log a surf heard at--how many bells? Oh, yes, five bells in the morning. Log Tom Blackwood for uncivil language to an officer and for refusing duty under fire!"
"Hark, boys!" commanded Jack "We may be getting into a mess and it's no time for joking and carrying on like that!"
"You're right, Jack, as always!" assented Tom. "Just to show that I'm serious, I'll joke no more until this fog lifts!"
"Here, too!" declared Harry. "But look at Rowdy! What's the matter, Rowdy, old chap?" he continued as a great white bulldog came up the ladder from the cabin. "What ails you?"
The bulldog was evidently excited about something for the hair on his shoulders and neck was standing straight up while from his throat issued a low fierce growl scarcely audible above the noise of the tumbling waters. His every action bespoke antipathy to something. Raising himself upon his hind legs, the dog rested his paws upon the window sill of the pilot house. He peered eagerly into the white shroud of mist that enveloped the motor boat.
"He hears that surf, too!" declared Tom. "He hears it!"
"I don't believe it's surf he hears," Jack stated. "He looks just like he did back there in Mobile when we found that black browed fellow trying to board the Fortuna.
"Good old Rowdy!" soothingly murmured Tom reaching over to give the dog a pat. "What do you see, boy? Tell your friend."
"Looks to me like it might be a person he scents!" Harry stated. "Only it isn't a likely place for a person to be out in this mess!"
"We're out in this mess, aren't we?" objected Tom.
Jack's hands swiftly traveled over the switchboard seeming to find as if by instinct just the right levers. The engines stopped and then reversed full speed! The Fortuna shook and quivered from stern to stern. She fell off slightly into the trough.
"On deck!" shouted Jack. "Here's a collision."
Tom