rather
badly for us, because he might give up the search, if a little storm
came on. And besides, if he was afraid of high waves in his tug, what
chance could those boats have had?

Toward noon, we got into water that was quite smooth, and we could see
land on the ocean side of us. I couldn't understand this, and went to
ask the captain about it. He said it was all right, we were going to
take the inside passage, which is formed by the islands that lie along
nearly all the coast of Georgia. The strips of sea-water between these
islands and the mainland make a smooth and convenient passage for the
smaller vessels that sail or steam along this coast. Indeed, some quite
good-sized steamers go this way, he said.

I objected, pretty strongly, to our taking this passage, because, I
said, we could never hear anything of the boats while we were in here.
But he was positive that if they had managed to land on the outside of
any of these islands, we could hear of them better from the inside than
from the ocean side. And besides, we could get along a great deal better
inside. He seemed to think more of that than anything else.

We had a pretty dull time on that tug. There wasn't a great deal of
talking, but there was lots of thinking, and not a very pleasant kind of
thinking either. We stopped quite often and hailed small boats, and the
captain talked to people whenever he had a chance, but he never heard
anything about any boats having run ashore on any of the islands, or
having come into the inside passage, between any of them. We met a few
sailing vessels, and toward the close of the afternoon we met a big
steamer, something like northern river steamers. The captain said she
ran between the St. John's River and Savannah, and always took the
inside passage as far as she could. He said this as if it showed him to
be in the right in taking the same passage, but I couldn't see that it
proved anything. We were on a different business.

About nine o'clock we went to bed, the captain promising to call us if
anything turned up. But I couldn't sleep well--my bunk was too close and
hot, and so I pretty soon got up and went up to the pilot-house, where I
found the captain. He and one of the hands were hard at work putting the
boat around.

"Hello!" said he. "I thought you were sound asleep."

"Hello!" said I. "What are you turning round for?"

It was bright starlight, and I could see that we were making a complete
circuit in the s