"What about the Sea Bird, Bob?" Joe asked when he had regained his breath sufficiently to talk. "I hate to leave the little craft to the mercy of wind and wave."
"Why don't you swing this hawser right aboard of her?" the red-nosed man proposed. "The owners may think she's worth comin' after, an' she'll lay here comfortable enough, unless it blows a full gale from the east."
The tug was still made fast to the brig, having came off the shoal at the same time, and, save for the huge patch of canvas over her bow, looking as staunch as when first launched.
"That's just what we will do; an' it'll save heavin' up the heavy anchor!" Joe cried. "The Bonita can lay alongside as well as if she was moored, and it won't take us so long to get under way when the wind does come."
As soon as the party had recovered somewhat from the fatigue of straining at the winch, the hawser was shifted to the forward bitt on the Sea Bird, and both crafts gradually swung around until they were headed for the open sea.
"We'll have a breeze before morning," the thin man remarked, "for one has sprung up every night since we landed, an' it's safe to calculate on leavin' about midnight."
"After we've had somethin' to eat we'll make ready for it," Bob said as he went toward the galley, for it was fully an hour past noon and the appetites of all were decidedly sharpened.
The amateur cook had everything ready, and the three boys carried the food below without being molested by those whom they quite naturally looked upon as enemies.
