Suddenly Alec heard the captain's voice. "Come in here, youngster. I want to talk with you."
Alec made his way through the cabin into the pilot-house, which was just deep enough to allow a person to stand comfortably or to sit on a stool. The floor of the pilot-house was considerably higher than the deck level, and Alec could see much better here. Also, it was warm. And although he had been so fascinated by the scene that he had momentarily forgotten about the weather, he now realized that he had been cold out on the deck.
A flash of light caught his eye. Then another light blinked at a much greater distance. "What are those lights?" Alec asked the captain.
"Those are the range-lights, to show the way into the harbor. And off there you can see East Point Light."
Alec followed the pointing finger of the captain and saw, off the port bow, a third light gleaming.
"We seem to be catching those fellows ahead," commented Alec.
"I reckon they're stuck in the mud," said the captain. "This northeast wind's been blowing hard for eighteen hours. It will make pretty low water."
"How much water does the _Bertha B_ draw?" inquired Alec.
"Then we ought not to have any trouble," said Alec. "It looks as though this river was pretty deep."
"Oh! There's plenty of water in the river; but there's a bar across the mouth of it, and with this wind blowing there won't be much water over it."
Rapidly the _Bertha B_ drew near the boats ahead of her. "They're all fast," commented the captain, as they passed a schooner on which a sailor was sounding with a pole. "Don't believe he's got three feet of water," the captain added. "And look there! The bar's clear out of water, with a flock of gulls on it. That's a sight you don't often see--the bar out of water."
Alec looked where the captain was pointing, and there, a long distance off the port bow, where the river entered the Delaware Bay, was a distinct black streak in the water, roughened at one end. The rough spots were gulls. But Alec would never have known that the black streak was a strip of mud and the knobby end was a mass of birds, had not the captain told him.
"Are we going to get through?" asked Alec, for the _Bertha B_ was still slowly forging ahead.