“Let go!” he called.

The big sail came down with a clatter and rattle of rings, and the anchor went overboard with a loud splash.  The “Sister Sue” was at anchor in the bay.  The skipper lighted his pipe and sat down all hunched together, puffing away with most aggravating deliberateness.

“Aren’t you coming ashore so we may get aboard and see the boat?” called Harriet.

“Bymeby,” was the laconic answer.

“I am the commodore.  I wish—­”

“The what?”

“The commodore,” answered Harriet, laughing so that she barely made herself heard.

“Commodore’s quarters aren’t ready,” called back Captain Billy.  “Let you know when we’re ready for you.  We aren’t going out again to-day.”

“I shall have to talk to the captain, I fear,” said Mrs. Livingston, smiling faintly.

Soon after coming to anchor the second man on the boat was observed to be busy furling the sail, which he took his time in doing.  This finished, he hauled up pails of water with a pail tied to the end of a rope and started swabbing down the decks.  This completed, he went about other duties, which, to the row of girls sitting on the Lonesome Bar, seemed trivial and for the sake of killing time.

“Isn’t it perfectly aggravating?” grumbled Margery Brown.

The supper horn blew while they still sat there waiting.  The Camp Girls reluctantly turned back toward camp.  They were disappointed, and so expressed themselves with emphasis while eating their supper.  But Harriet, who had been excused before the others had finished, hurried out to take an observation.  She was back almost at once.

“Their rowboat is coming ashore,” she cried, pointing toward the bay.

Instantly every girl in the cook tent, without the formality of asking to be excused, pushed back her chair and dashed out.  Mrs. Livingston so far overlooked their breach of etiquette as to rush out with the rest of them.

“Come on, darlin’s.  They’ve come ashore for us at last.  First there, first to go out.  Go!”

It was a race for the landing place, with Harriet and Jane running side by side, Tommy Thompson following and gradually lessening the distance between them in a series of flying leaps.  Tommy could run like a frightened fawn.  Harriet heard her coming and increased her speed.  Tommy gained no more on Harriet, though she arrived at their objective point by the side of Crazy Jane McCarthy.

“Ready to go out,” announced the man.  “But I can’t take more than five at a time.  Who goes first?”

Harriet halted sharply at sound of his voice, and gazed at the man perplexedly.  His voice was strangely familiar, but, try as she would, she could not think where she had seen him.

CHAPTER XVIII

FIREWORKS FROM THE MASTHEAD

“Wait for Mrs. Livingston,” replied Harriet in answer to the man’s question.  “You are not the captain, are you?”