“Yes, there’s plenty of pilot bread,” answered Tom. “Shall I butter some?”
“No; let’s have it _au natural_, Tommy. That’s French and means something, but I don’t remember just what. No; pilot bread is better without butter. Scoot along, now; we may have a desperate battle before us,” with a wink at Bob, “and we must have our bodies fortified. Whatever that is,” he added, as Tom went below.
“I don’t see that she’s gained any,” said Bob presently.
The welcome news was passed below to Nelson, and he came up to see for himself.
“That’s right,” he said. “They’ve dropped back a little, and I’m mighty glad of it. The fact is, we aren’t getting all our speed. There’s something wrong somewhere, and I guess it’s the gasoline. It was probably pretty poor stuff; full of water, I dare say.”
“But there’s no fear of the engine stopping, is there?” asked Bob. Nelson shook his head.
“Not likely; but she’s missing a spark now and then, and she may do worse than that. I don’t believe we’re doing better than ten and a half miles.”
“Well, if we can beat her at that,” said Dan, “what’s the use of worrying?”
Tom came up with a dish of pilot bread and a jar of marmalade, and there was an impromptu feast in the cockpit.
“How about the kid down there?” asked Dan. “Maybe he’s hungry, too.”
“That’s so,” exclaimed Nelson. “I’ll take some of this truck down to him.” When he returned he said: “Glad you thought of it, Dan; the poor duffer’s putting that pilot bread away as though he hadn’t seen a square meal in an age.”
“Maybe he hasn’t,” said Bob. “I don’t believe the grub’s very good at the captain’s table.”
“Much the fellow down there would know about the captain’s table,” scoffed Dan. “He probably ate in the forecastle.”
“Not if he was cabin boy,” returned Bob. “Cabin boys eat at the officers’ mess.”
“Who said he was cabin boy?” asked Dan. “I’ll bet he was just a—a sort of apprentice. Why can’t we have him up here and hear what the row is?”
“They might see him from the tug,” said Tom, glancing uneasily toward that boat.
“What if they do? They know he’s here, anyhow. Call him up, Nelson.”
And in a moment he appeared at the steps, glanced about him anxiously and diffidently, and stood as though awaiting further instructions. He was a small boy, but he looked hard and healthy. His rather thin face was bronzed by the wind, and the skin on the end of his funny little upturned nose was peeling off, perhaps from the same cause. He didn’t look overly clean, but he had rather nice, honest brown eyes and a serious mouth, at one corner of which, just at present, a flake of pilot bread was adhering. He was dressed in a pair of brown trousers, which were neither long nor short but which left off a good three inches above his shoes, a blue-and-white-striped cotton shirt, guiltless of collar or tie, and a jacket, very much too large for him, of a color once blue and now a queer brownish purple. His hands were broad, and brown and scarred—not at all pretty to look at—with broken and blackened nails. On his touseled brown hair he wore a dirty canvas cap. As the Four observed him for a moment in silence, he took off his cap, awkwardly and hesitatingly, and clutched it in his hands.