water between them and the wharf.

"Stop her!" cried Scott to me, as if I could do anything, and then he
made a dive toward a party of men on the deck.

"They're passengers!" I cried. "We must find the captain."

"No, no!" said Harry. "Go for the steersman. Tell him to steer back! We
mustn't be carried off!"

Tom Myers and his brother George had already started for the
pilot-house, when Rectus shouted to them that he'd run down to the
engineer and tell him to stop the engine. So they stopped, and Rectus
was just going below when Scott called to him to hold up.

"You needn't be scared!" he said. (He had been just as much scared as
anybody.) "That man over there says it will be all right. We can go back
with the pilot. People often do that. It will be all the more fun. Don't
bother the engineer. There's nothing I'd like better than a trip back
with a pilot!"

"That's so," said Harry; "I never thought of the pilot."

"But are you sure he'll take you back?" asked Rectus, while Tom Myers
and his brother George looked very pale and anxious.

"Take us? Of course he will," said Scott. "That's one of the things a
pilot's for,--to take back passengers,--I mean people who are only
going part way. Do you suppose the captain will want to take us all the
way to Savannah for nothing?"

Rectus didn't suppose that, and neither did any of the rest of us, but I
thought we ought to look up the captain and tell him.

"But, you see," said Scott, "it's just possible he _might_ put back."

"Well, don't you want to go back?" I asked.

"Yes, of course, but I would like a sail back in a pilot-boat," said
Scott, and Harry Alden agreed with him. Tom Myers and his brother George
wanted to go back right away.

We talked the matter over a good deal. I didn't wish to appear as if I
wanted to get rid of the fellows who had been kind enough to come all
the way from Willisville to see me off, but I couldn't help thinking
that it didn't look exactly fair and straightforward not to say that
these boys were not passengers until the pilot was ready to go back. I
determined to go and see about the matter, but I would wait a little
while.

It was cool on deck, especially now that the vessel was moving along,
but we all buttoned up our coats and walked up and down. The sun shone
brightly, and the scene was so busy and lively with the tug-boats
puffing about, and the vessels at anchor, and the ferry-boats, and a
whole bay-full of sights curious