“I wonder if the local fishermen start out at this time of the night?” Eph
Somers remarked, musingly, to the sentry.

“It may be so, sir; I don’t know,” replied the marine.

Presently Eph made out the lines and the spread of canvas of a handsome
knockabout sloop standing on out of the harbor.

The course being narrow, the sloop was obliged to sail rather close to the
fleet.

“That’s no fisherman!” muttered Somers, watching, his hands thrust deep in
his pockets.

Presently the sloop’s hull was lost to Eph’s sight beyond the gunboat.
Then the boy heard a voice from the “Hudson’s” deck roar out:

“Look alive, you lubber! Do you want to foul our anchor chain?”

“No, sir,” came from the sloop’s deck. “We’ll clear you all right.”

“See that you do, then!”

Then the sloop’s hull came into view again, as the craft headed out toward
the open water beyond.

“That’s the kind of a craft Jack would give a heap to be on,” thought Eph.
“Queer that he should spend all his time on gasoline peanut-roasters when
he’s so fond of whistling for a breeze behind canvas.”