“How on earth did _you_ know what the signal was, Hastings?” demanded Mr.
Farnum.

“Why, sir, I’ve been sitting so that I could see Jack’s arm. I’ve been
reading, from the motions of his right arm, the dots and dashes of the
Morse telegraph alphabet.”

“You youngsters certainly get me, for the things you think of,” laughed
the shipyard’s owner.

“And the ’Farnum,’ or whatever it is, is coming up,” called Captain Jack,
suddenly. “I just felt my lead slide down over the top of her hull.
Hard-a-starboard, Hal, and row hard,” shouted young Benson, breathlessly.

Though Hastings obeyed immediately he was barely an instant too soon. To
his dismay, Mr. Farnum saw something dark, unwieldy, rising through the
water. It appeared to be coming up fairly under the stern of the shore
boat, threatening to overturn the little craft and plunge them all into
the icy water.

Hal shot just out of the danger zone, though. Then a round little tower
bobbed up out of the water. Immediately afterward the upper third of a
long, cigar-shaped craft came up into view, water rolling from her
dripping sides, which glistened brightly as the sun came out briefly from
behind a fall cloud.

In the conning tower, through the thick plate glass, the three people in
the shore boat made out the carroty-topped head and freckled,
good-humored, honest, homely face of Eph Somers. The boat lay on the
water, under no headway, drifting slightly with the wind-driven ripples.