Mrs. Leroy smiled at the major's nautical knowledge and quarter-deck air, and rose to her feet to see the approaching tender. Under Sanford's guiding finger, she followed the course of the long thread of black smoke lying on the still horizon, unwinding slowly from the spool of the tender's funnel.
Everybody was now on deck. Helen and the other younger ladies of the party leaned over the yacht's rail watching the rapidly nearing steamer; the older ladies mounted the deck from the cabin, some of them becoming fully persuaded that the Ledge with its derricks and shanty--a purple-gray mass under the morning glare--was unquestionably the expected boat.
Soon the Ledge loomed up in all its proportions, with its huge rim of circular masonry lying on the water line like a low monitor rigged with derricks for masts. When the rough shanty for the men, and the platforms filled with piles of cement barrels, and the hoisting-engine were distinctly outlined against the sky, everybody crowded forward to see the place of which they had heard so much.
Mrs. Leroy stood one side, that Sanford might explain without interruption the several objects as they came into view.
"Why, Henry," she exclaimed, after everybody had said how wonderful it all was, "how much work you have really done since I saw it in the spring! And there is the engine, is it, to which the pump belonged that nearly drowned Captain Joe and Caleb? And are those the big derricks you had so much trouble over? They don't look very big."
"They are twice the size of your body, Kate," said Sanford, laughing. "They may look to you like knitting-needles from this distance, but that is because everything around them is on so large a scale. You wouldn't think that shanty which looks like a coal-bin could accommodate twenty men and their stores."
As Sanford ceased speaking, the major turned quickly, entered the pilot-house, and almost instantly reappeared with the yacht's spyglass. This he carefully adjusted, resting the end on the ratlines. "Victory is ours," he said slowly, closing the glass. "I haven't a doubt about the result."
The yacht and the lighthouse tender were not the only boats bound for the Ledge. The Screamer, under charge of a tug,--her sails would have been useless in the still air,--was already clear of Keyport Light, and heading for the landing-wharf a mile away. Captain Bob Brandt held the tiller, and Captain Joe and Caleb leaned out of the windows of the pilot-house of the towing tug. They wanted to be there to see if Carleton "played any monkey tricks," to quote Captain Brandt.