After an interval of waiting, from out of the mist came the wail of the stranded ship’s siren once more.

“There she is, right in there,” declared the captain, pointing seaward into the mist.  “Steer right on that tack, Rob, and we’ll pick her up pretty soon.”

The motor was started up once more and the Flying Fish forged ahead through the smother.  Suddenly Rob, with a sharp cry of: 

“Stop her!” swung his wheel over sharp and the Flying Fish headed about.

The gleaming black rampart of a large vessel’s side had suddenly loomed up dead ahead of him.

“Ahoy! aboard the steamer,” roared the captain, framing his mouth with his hands, “what ship is that?”

“The El Paso from London to New York,” came back a hail from somewhere above them in a somewhat surprised tone, “who are you?”

“The Flying Fish of Hampton, Long Island,” responded Rob, with a laugh.

“Never heard of her,” responded the voice, “we’re hard aground on one of your Long Island shoals it seems.”

“That’s what yer are,” exclaimed the captain, “how come yer ter be huggin’ the shore so hard?”

“Trying to avoid a collision with another vessel.”

“Are yer all right?” bellowed the captain.

“Seem to be.  So far as we can find out there’s not a plate started, but if you’re from the land we’ve got a couple of passengers we’d be thankful if you’d take ashore.  Will you come on board?”

“Sure, if yer’ll drop a Jacob’s ladder,” bellowed the captain at the invisible speaker.

“In a minute.”

The conversation had been carried on without either of the parties to it being able to see one another, but the captain of the vessel—­for he had been the boy’s interlocutor—­now came off the bridge and with some of the crew watched two sailors lower a Jacob’s ladder and make it fast to the rail.

“Now we go aboard,” said Captain Hudgins, clambering up the swaying contrivance as nimbly as an athlete, “make our painter fast ter the ladder, Rob.”

This being done, the boys followed the veteran on board.  The steamer, when they gained her deck, puzzled them a good deal and it was not till her captain, a genial blond-bearded Britisher, explained to them that she was a cattle ship that they understood the utility of the wooden structures with which her decks were obstructed.

The captain explained that these were pens for the cattle she expected to take back to England, from which country she was returning after having taken over a large consignment of steers.

“Which,” went on the captain, “brings us to my passengers.  They are Mr. Frank Harkness and his son, of Lariat, a small cattle town in the West, where Mr. Harkness has a large ranch.  They were his cattle that we took over and as he had difficulty in engaging a berth on a liner at this time of year, when the passenger ships are crowded, he decided to return with us.  Here is Mr. Harkness now,” he added, as a tall, bronzed man, with a long coat draped over a pair of broad shoulders, and a wide-brimmed sombrero above keen eyes, approached.