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The Adventure Club Afloat

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became quite docile and friendly. They put up their sail again and gradually the _Catspaw_ pointed her nose toward the coast. Just before darkness came the sea had quieted enough to make possible an attempt to get the cables aboard again and those on the schooner saw the cruisers draw together. Steve and Phil caught the line hurled from the _Follow Me_ after several attempts and then the tender was dropped over and with the two cables aboard the boys made for the _Catspaw_. Those on the schooner watched anxiously. At one moment the tiny dingey was seen poised on the summit of a great green sea and the next was quite gone from sight. The sun came out momentarily before saying Good Night, as though to watch that struggle. At last the tender came sidling down the slope of a wave, the occupants striving hard at the oars, and after one breathless moment, during which it seemed that the little boat would be crushed to splinters against the old black hull of the schooner, Joe caught the painter, Steve made a flying leap for the deck and gained it in safety, and Phil, boat-hook in hand, worked manfully and skilfully to fend off while the cables were brought aboard. The dingey had fetched food as well and a shout of joy went up as Phil, taking advantage of the calm moments between the rushing waves, hurled the bundles to the deck. There was little time for conversation, for darkness was coming fast, but Steve heard a brief account of the _Catspaw's_ experiences, and, while helping to make fast the cables, told of the night aboard the _Adventurer_. "It was fierce," Steve said. "No one had much sleep, I guess. We almost pitched on our nose time and again. If it hadn't been for you chaps we'd have cut and run about midnight. We lost sight of your lights several times; they were so low in the water, and thought that you'd gone down at first. The _Follow Me_ had to run for it, and I guess they weren't very happy either. But we'll make it this time. It's clearing up nicely and we're only forty miles from Portsmouth. Keep your lips stiff, fellows, and we'll be eating breakfast ashore!" The dingey pulled off again, narrowly escaping capsizing more than once, and ten minutes afterwards the _Catspaw_ was once more wallowing along in the wake of the cruisers. Supper, with bacon and potatoes and lots of bread, perked the crew up mightily, and when the stars began to peep through the scudding clouds and the sea stopped tormenting the poor old _Catspaw_ they got quite cheerful. That second night was an easy one for all hands. The weather cleared entirely by two o'clock and the sea calmed to almost normal conditions. The _Catspaw_ strained along at the ends of the cables at about three miles an hour until she got close enough to the shore to feel the tide. After that she went more slowly. At early dawn--and it was a real dawn this time, with sunlight on the water and a golden glow in the eastern sky--the Isles of Shoals lay six miles to the southwest and the blue shore line was beckoning them. At a little before eleven that forenoon the _Catspaw_ passed Portsmouth Light and half an hour later, having been given over to the care of a tug, was lying snugly against a wharf. It was a tired but triumphant dozen that stretched their legs ashore at noon and set out in search of dinner. Already they had answered a score of questions and told their story half a dozen times, and even after they were seated at table in the best restaurant that the city afforded--and it was a very good restaurant, too--an enterprising newspaper reporter found them out and Steve, as spokesman, recounted their adventures once more between mouthfuls. And when at last they could eat no more and the reporter had gone off to write his story, Steve, Joe and Wink set forth to an address they had secured on the wharf and the others adjourned to the porch of a nearby hotel to await their return. "Tell him," instructed Perry as they parted, "that we won't accept a cent less than a thousand dollars! And," he added to himself, "I wouldn't go through it again for fifty thousand!" CHAPTER XXIII SALVAGE Mr. Anthony T. Hyatt, attorney-at-law, leaned smilingly back in a swivel-chair, matched ten pudgy fingers together and smiled expansively at his clients. There was a great deal of Mr. Hyatt, and much of it lay directly behind his clasped hands. He had a large, round face in the centre of which a small, sharp nose surmounted a wide mouth and was flanked by a pair of pale brown eyes at once innocent and shrewd. Steve counted three chins and was not certain there wasn't another tucked away behind the collar of the huge shirt. Mr. Hyatt had a deep and mellow voice, and his words rolled and rumbled out like the reverberations of a good-natured thunder storm. From the windows of the bright, breeze-swept office the boys could look far out to sea, and it was possible that the faintly nautical atmosphere that appertained both to the office and its occupant was due to the sight and smell of the salt water. While Steve told his story the lawyer's expression slowly changed from jovial amusement to surprise, and when the narrative was ended he drew himself ponderously from the chair and rolled to a window. "You say you've got her tied up to Sawyer's Wharf, eh?" he asked. "Yes, sir." "I want to know! Well! Well! Where'd you say you came across her?" Steve told him again. "And you brought her in yourself, eh?" "The lot of us did. Now what we want to know is what claim have we got against the owners, Mr. Hyatt?" The lawyer heaved himself back to his chair and lowered himself into it with what the boys thought was a most reckless disregard of the article's capacity and strength. But the chair only creaked dismally. "Of course you do! Of course you do!" he rumbled smilingly. "But s'posing I was to tell you you hadn't any claim at all on 'em?" "What! No claim at all?" exclaimed Steve. The man laughed and shook. "I only said s'posing," he protested. He weaved his fingers together again over his ample stomach. "As a matter of law, young gentlemen, you have an excellent claim, a steel-bound, double-riveted claim. Whether it's against the owners or some insurance company is what you'll have to find out first. Most likely that ship and cargo were insured. As to just what amount you are entitled to, the law

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