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THE DEEP SEA HUNTERS THE BOOK OF THE MOTOR BOAT ISLES OF SPICE AND PALM
[Illustration: We’re homeward bound, may winds blow fair! Good-bye, fare ye well! Good-bye, fare ye well! Wafting us true to friends, waiting there. Hurrah, my bullies, we’re homeward bound!]
Author of “The Real Story of the Whaler,” “Isles of Spice and Palm,” “The Book of the Motor Boat,” etc.
D. Appleton and Company New York : : 1922 : : London
Copyright, 1922, by D. Appleton and Company
I. The Boys Make a Bargain II. Outward Bound III. There She Blows! IV. A Narrow Escape V. Strange Visitors VI. An Island Quite Out of the World VII. How Cap’n Pem Lost His Leg VIII. Elephant Island IX. Spinning Yarns X. Lost XI. A Strange Message XII. The Raiders XIII. Homeward Bound XIV. The Boys Make a Discovery
“Oh, Tom!” cried Jim Lathrop, as he dashed into his chum’s den, “what do you think? They’re fitting the _Hector_ out for a cruise!”
“Come on, I don’t believe it. You can’t fool me that way,” replied Tom, tossing aside his book. “What’s the joke? Why the old _Hector_ wouldn’t float—she’s had grass growing out of her seams for years.”
“Honest, they are, though,” asserted Jim. “If you don’t believe it come along and see.”
Grabbing his cap, Tom hurried out with his friend, and the two boys ran down the shady, sleepy streets of old Fair Haven towards the water front.
It was little wonder that Tom was incredulous of Jim’s news, for, to the boys, the ancient whaling bark _Hector_ was as much of a fixture as the village church or the town hall. As long as they could remember the old ship had lain on the mud flat beside the abandoned old whaling docks, her dingy, weather-beaten sides rising far above the rotting stringpieces of the wharf; her spars, gray from countless storms and years of sunshine, sagging and awry; her tattered and frayed standing rigging slack and her deck warped and with open seams. Built nearly one hundred years ago, the _Hector_ had for generations been the pride of the great New Bedford whaling fleet, but, long before either of the boys had been born, she had been towed to her resting place upon the Fair Haven flats and abandoned to the elements.