Toby left the wheel and scuttled astern, keeping out of sight. Once there he raised himself so that his head and shoulders showed above the gunwale. Then he hurried back to the bow and repeated the operation. He couldn’t be five men, he decided, but he could manage to look like two at least. Perhaps that ruse decided the matter, for, after a moment or two, during which the low voices of the three occupants of the other launch muttered and growled, the first speaker spoke again.
“I guess you’ve got us,” he said quite cheerfully, “but you wouldn’t have caught us in a thousand years if we hadn’t run out of gas.” Toby’s sigh of relief mingled with Arnold’s. “Can we run this tub on the beach so’s we can get off?”
Arnold hesitated and Toby prompted with a whispered “No.”
“No, you can leave the launch where she is and hustle out of her.”
“Then drown,” answered Arnold gruffly. “Your time’s up. What’s it going to be?”
The answer from the launch was profane but decisive. In substance it stated that they were going to get out and that they earnestly hoped the occupants of the white launch would meet with a vast amount of misfortune!
“They’re taking some of the plunder with them,” whispered Toby, watching across the gunwale. “Tell them to drop it, Arn!”
“You heard what I said about taking stuff with you,” threatened Arnold, his voice doubtless sounding quite terrifying through the megaphone. “Drop it quick or we’ll nab the lot of you!”
Mutters and some hesitation then, followed by a splash as one of the men dropped into the water. A second lowered himself very cautiously over the stern, which had swung around nearest to the shore, and the third, pausing long enough to voice his disapproval of the whole proceeding and of the pursuers especially, took a flying leap and cut through the water with long, businesslike strokes, passing his companions half-way to the beach and tossing them a grim jest as he left them astern.
“It worked!” exulted Arnold, jubilantly, to Toby.
“Great! But give them time to get away from shore. That big fellow had something in his mouth, I think; the one who dropped over so mighty carefully. Bring her around, Arn, and be ready to take her in.”
Arnold threw in the clutch, advanced the throttle and the _Frolic_ swung slowly about in a wide circle, while Toby, his hands on the wheel but his eyes on the figures nearing the shore, watched cautiously.