erm a 'capful uv wind.'"

"Well, so long as it isn't a really bad blow, it won't trouble the
Flying Fish," Rob assured him.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the old man suddenly. "What queer kind uv craft is
that?"

He pointed back to the mouth of the now distant inlet, from which a
curious-looking black craft was emerging at what seemed to be great
speed.

"It's that hydroplane of Sam Redding's, for a bet!" cried Rob. "Here,
Tubby, take the wheel a minute, while I put the glasses on her."

The lad stood up in the heaving motor craft, steadying himself against
the bulwarks by his knees, and peered through his marine-glasses.

"It's the hydroplane, sure enough," he said. "By ginger, but she can
go, all right! Sam and Jack and Bill are all in her. They seem to be
heading right out to sea, too."

"Say!" exclaimed Tubby suddenly, "if it comes on to blow, as the
captain said it would, they'll be in a bad fix, won't they?"

"In that ther shoe-box thing," scornfully exclaimed the old captain,
who had also been looking through the glasses, "why, I wouldn't give a
confederate dollar bill with a hole in it fer their lives."

CHAPTER III

BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE

"Hadn't we better put back and warn them?" suggested Merritt rather
anxiously, for he was alarmed by the confident manner in which the old
seaman prophesied certain disaster to the hydroplane if the weather
freshened.

"No; see, she's heading toward us. I guess they want a race," cried
Rob. "We'll slow down a bit and let them catch up."

In a few moments the hydroplane was alongside. The yellow hood over
her powerful engines glistened with the wet of the great bow-wave her
speed had occasioned, and her powerful motor was exhausting with a roar
like a battery of machine guns.

Crouched aft of the engine hood was Sam Redding, who held the wheel.
Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were in the stern. They sat tandem-wise
in the narrow racing shell.

"Want a tow rope for that old stone dray of yours?" jeered Jack
Curtiss, as the speedy little racer ranged alongside.

He did not know that the Flying Fish was slowed down, and that although
the hydroplane appeared to be capable of tremendous speed, she was not
actually so very much faster than Rob's boat.

"Say, you fellows," warned Rob, making a trumpet of his hands, "the
captain says it's coming on to blow before long. You'd better get back
into the inlet with that craft of yours."

"Save your breath to c