“Yes, sir!” floated back over Jack’s shoulder.

“Then what’s at the bottom—”

“Eph and the boat, both together, or I miss my guess,” Captain Jack
shouted back as he halted at the water’s edge, where a rowboat lay hauled
up on the shore.

Jacob Farnum’s face showed suddenly pallid as he, also, reached the beach.
Hal, who was in the rear, did not seem so much startled.

“Do you think Eph has gone off on a cruise all alone?—that he has come to
any harm?” gasped the shipbuilder.

“I don’t know, but I’m not going to worry a mite about Eph Somers until I
have to,” retorted Jack Benson, easily.

“Eph can generally take care of himself,” added Hal Hastings. “He rarely
falls into any kind of scrape that he can’t climb out of.”

“But this is a bad time for him to take the ’Farnum’ and cruise away,”
objected the owner of the yard. “The ’Hudson’ may be here at any hour, you
know, and we ought to be ready for orders.”

As he spoke, Mr. Farnum scanned the horizon away to the south, out over
the sea.

“There’s a line of smoke, now, and not many miles away,” he announced. “It
may, as likely as not, be smoke from the ’Hudson’s’ pipe.”