"What you fellers doin'?"

The captain soon got stronger, and said he was all right but for a
headache which was splitting his skull. He tried to rise, but fell
back in a faint, and Dick told him he must lie still and give
orders, which Johnny and he would obey. Then Dick stood on a thwart
and studied the water as far as he could see, hoping to find an oar.
He saw a mast, a hatch cover and some broken fragments from the
_Etta_ and at last the blade from the oar which the captain had
broken. Johnny and he paddled with their hands until they recovered
the oar blade. As a light breeze had sprung up from the south, which
was causing them to drift northward, they headed south, paddling and
watching by turns, until they found the lost oar. Then Dick, resting
the oar in the sculling hole, called on the captain for orders.

"Better strike out due east and make for Nor'-West Cape. That's the
nearest land and we're liable to be struck by a squall 'most any
minute. Then there's a cocoanut grove at the Cape and you'll be
thirsty by the time you get there."

"Gee!" said Dick, "I'm thirsty now. Wish you hadn't spoken of it."

Dick put his weight on the oar and as he swung back and forth on it
the captain called out:

"You sure can scull, boy, but take it easy; you've got over a dozen
miles of it to the Cape and near fifty more up the coast, after
that."

"Where do I come in?" said Johnny.