better get back into the inlet with that craft of yours."

"Save your breath to cool your coffee," shouted Sam Redding back
at him, across the fifty feet or so of water that lay between the
two boats. "We know what we are about."

"But you're risking your lives," shouted Merritt. "That thing
wouldn't live ten minutes in any kind of a sea."

"Well, we're not such a bunch of old women as to be scared of a
little wetting," jeered Jack Curtiss. "So long! We've got no
time to wait for that old tub of yours."

Before the boys could voice any more warnings, the hydroplane,
which had been slowed down, dashed off once more.

"I don't know what we are to do," spoke up Merritt. "We can't
compel them to go in, and, after all, the captain may be
mistaken."

"No, I'm not, my son," rejoined the veteran. "I can smell wind--and
see them 'mare's tails' in the sky over yonder. They're as fall
uv wind as a preacher is uv texts."

"Well, we've done our best to warn them," concluded Rob. "If
they are so foolhardy as to keep on, we can't help it."

In half an hour more the boys had landed the captain at the
little pier he had built on his island, and to which his rowboat
was attached, and were ready to start back, good-bys having been