Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast; or, Through Storm and Stress to Florida

"He did it!" bellowed Josh, fairly wild with eagerness. "Oh! I'm afraid the poor fellow will be drowned before that tug can come about and go to his rescue. Turn your bally old tub, Herb, can't you? It takes a whole day for you to get around."

"No use of our trying it," declared the skipper of the big roomy Comfort, calmly, for nothing could start Herb out of his customary condition of mental poise, because he is as steady in his way as his boat; "he'd be drowned twice over before we reached him. Besides, there goes Jack in his Tramp, shooting straight for the smashed rowboat. Unless the poor fellow was injured and has already sank our chum will get him all right, Josh."

"That's right," declared Josh. "George has gone and got flustrated, so that he turned the wrong way; but if anybody can save that fellow it's Jack Stormways. Oh! I hope he does it, because I'll take it as a good sign that our new voyage down the coast is going to have a lucky start!"

CHAPTER II.

A GOOD OMEN FOR THE START

Jack Stormways was always prepared. He never lost his head in an emergency, for which more than one of his chums had had reason to be thankful in times past. So, on the present occasion, when he saw that the tug could not make a complete circuit against the running tide and reach the wrecked rowboat in time to be of any assistance to the unfortunate who had been hurled into the Delaware, Jack instantly headed the little motor boat for the spot.

"Get up in the bow with you, Jimmy, quick now, and take the boathook along! I'll slow down when we get there; and perhaps you can grab him in!" the skipper called out.

Accustomed to obeying, Jimmy made haste to snatch up the implement mentioned, and which had many the time proved its value in recovering things that had been swept overboard in a wind storm.

Then he hurried to gain a position near the bow of the boat, where he crouched, after making sure of his footing, so as to guard against a shock when he clapped the boathook into the clothing of the drowning man.

"I see him, Jack!" he bawled immediately. "He's holding to the boat, so he is!"

"All right, Jimmy," echoed the skipper, calmly; "I glimpsed him before you did, I reckon. Steady yourself now, and try not to make a foozle of it, old man. There you are. Jimmy; get him!"

And Jimmy did the same, catching the coat of the man in the water with his boathook, and holding on tenaciously. Jack, meanwhile, turned his engine backward, so that the momentum of the boat was promptly checked.

The man had been clinging to the rapidly sinking wreckage. In another half minute, no doubt, he would have been left without any support; and as he did not seem able to swim a stroke, his end must have speedily come.

Jimmy drew in with the haft of the boat-hook, until he could stretch down and seize upon the collar of the man's coat. As the Irish lad was brawny and nerved just then to mighty deeds, he managed to hoist the fellow into the little motor boat.

The unlucky man was white, and pretty nearly drowned. He had just had enough sense to cling desperately to the wreck of his boat, and then allow Jimmy to do the rescue act.

"Did you get hurt when that tug struck your boat?" asked Jack, for that was what he feared.

The man was blinking at him, for his eyes had taken in more or less of the brackish water of the river; but he shook his head in the negative. This relieved Jack more than a little. Like Josh, he had been hoping that in the very beginning of their new cruise a wet blanket might not be cast over the spirits of the party by their witnessing the drowning of a poor chap.

"Here comes the tug down after us," remarked Jimmy. "I suppose the omadhauns 'll be expressing their regrets for the accident. Sure, it was criminal carelessness, if ever there was a case. And ye'll be silly, sor, if so be ye don't make 'em pay for the boat they smashed."

By degrees the man seemed to come out of the half stupor into which his sudden immersion in the waters of the river had thrown him.

"They just got to," he grumbled, shaking his head; "for 'twas a borrowed boat, an' I can't pay for a new one."

"We'll try and see you through," said Jack. "If they think we're ready to tell what we saw, they'll not only pay you good damages, but take you ashore in the bargain."

"That's the ticket!" declared Jimmy, quite taken with the idea of frightening the captain of the tug into doing the right thing by his victim.

Presently the tug came alongside, and an anxious voice called out:

"Was he much hurt, boys? I'm sorry it happened. Second accident of the week, and such things don't do a man's reputation as a pilot any good."

"Well," replied Jack, promptly, "suppose you whack up for his boat, and a suit of clothes for the man; then take him ashore, and none of us will say a word about the accident, as you call it, but which looked mighty like criminal carelessness to us."

There was a brief interval of silence, during which the two men in the wheel-house of the tug seemed to be conferring.

"How much does he want, my lad?" asked one, presently thrusting his head and shoulders out, so that Jack could have almost shaken hands had he wished.

"The boat ought to be worth fifteen dollars; and say ten more to get him a new suit. That's letting you down easy, my friend," called the skipper of the Tramp.

"Oh, well, I guess I'll have to stand it, though I don't believe the old tub was worth five. Here you are, bub; and if you chuck the feller across to us, we'll dry him off, and land him somewhere above."

Jack eagerly took the proffered bills, and thrust them into the hand of the man who had been so happily rescued.

"Here you are, and good luck to you," he said, cheerily. "Do you think you can get aboard the tug now, my man?"

The other had gripped the several bank bills eagerly; but at the same time a look of caution came into his eyes.

"Say, mister, can't you manage to drop me ashore somewhere below here?" he asked, in a hoarse whisper.

"Well, it wouldn't be altogether convenient," replied Jack, hesitating; and then as he saw the pilot of the tugboat watching them, with a grin on his face, a sudden realization as to what the rescued man feared broke in upon him.

"They might make me give it back again, ye see, after I got dried off," continued the poor fellow, who evidently had not held so much money in his hand for many a long day.

"By George! that's so!" Nick was heard to exclaim; for the Wireless had crept up, and now lay right alongside the Tramp.

Jack was quick to make a decision, and as a rule his first thought was the right one, too.

"I'll land you myself!" he declared, sturdily; "it won't take much time. And I guess a good deed done in the beginning of the voyage ought to bring us luck to pull out of many a bad hole."

Then raising his voice and addressing the man at the wheel of the tug, Jack continued:

"We'll set him ashore below, Captain. You see, he doesn't want to ride up to the city; neither do you prefer to have him go. It's all right; we'll say nothing of what we saw to anybody. So long, Captain!"

And without waiting for an answer Jack simply started his motor, upon which the Tramp shot away from the tug. Looking back, Jack saw the two men conferring, but he felt sure they would allow things to rest.

"That negligence cost him twenty-five dollars, you see, Jimmy; and perhaps he'll keep his eyes about him after this, when he's on the move. It's lucky for him, as well as for our friend here, that a human life was not snuffed out in the bargain."

"And do we head for the shore now, Jack?" queried the mate and cook.

"As soon as I find out which side the wrecked mariner wants to land on," replied the skipper, turning to his passenger.

"Just suit yourself, sir," spoke up the man, into whose face the color was once more beginning to creep, as he looked frequently at the wad of greenbacks, which he continued to caress with his fingers, as though the very feel of them did his heart good.

"But which side do you live on?" persisted Jack, wishing to do the best he could for the fellow.

"Well, now, I live over in Jersey, near Bridgeport," said the man; "but I was goin' across to Lamokin in Pennsylvania, on a chance to get work. So if you'll put me ashore anywhere below here, I can walk up the railroad track to the junction."

Jack immediately headed shoreward.

"Take things easy, fellows, and we'll catch up with you before you've gone many miles," he called out to those in the other boats, since there seemed no necessity for all of them to leave the middle of the river just to land one man.

It was no trouble to get close in on the Pennsylvania shore; the case might have been different over in Jersey, where they could see that marshland abounded at this point.