ncern. This was in
connection with the fact that the easterly breeze seemed to have bobbed
around to the southwest. Now, from all that he had heard this was a
quarter that nearly always brings one of those howling "northers" that
prove such a bane to Florida cruisers.

"How about that, Joe--is the fact that the wind is in the southwest apt
to bring bad weather?" he asked, when he could get the cracker lad aside;
for Frank did not wish to further alarm his chums.

"Most always that happens. When the wind rises now, unless she goes back
once again to the south, you see she will be squally," returned Joe, also
lowering his voice cautiously.

"And that squally wind develops into something stronger, I guess?"
pursued the Northern boy, always seeking to learn.

"It jumps around to the northwest like a pompano skipping along the water
in a shoal. Then for three days it blows like a railroad train, out of
the north, and we all shiver," was the characteristic reply.

"Well, I only hope the squall part of it holds off until we pick up the
poor professor. We saved him once from the fire, and now it seems up to
us to pull him in out of the wet, if we have any decent sort of luck."

Noting the look of surprise on the little fellow's brown face, and
realizing that he was totally ignorant in connection with what his words
meant, Frank proceeded to tell how the hotel in Centerville was burned,
and what a part Jerry and himself had had in the rescue of the
balloonist, who had taken a sleeping powder, and lay in his room,
unconscious of the tumult and peril.

Jerry meanwhile was making as good use of the marine glasses as he knew
how.

"See anything that looks like the wreckage of a balloon on the water?"
asked Frank, as he swept the horizon with his naked eye, but in vain.

"Not a beastly thing," returned the other, in a disappointed tone.

"Oh, I'm afraid we've come in the wrong direction," sighed tender-hearted
Will, shaking his head dubiously; "and it's just terrible to think that
those poor chaps may be drowning right now, and our little boat so near
at hand!"

"Tell me about that, will you? There he goes as usual, making us feel
like murderers or something, when we only want a chance to get in our
fine rescuing act. Stop him talking that way, Frank, won't you?" pleaded
Bluff, who had emptied all the sand out of the bag dropped by the
drifting balloonists, and declared he meant to hang the same up in his
den at home as