anded,"
remarked the captain as Merritt bent over the flywheel and Rob threw in
the spark and turned on the gasoline. After a few revolutions an
explosion resulted and the Flying Fish was off on the mission which
might mean so much or so little to the anxious hearts on board her.

"Do you know the channel," asked Merritt as Rob with his eyes glued on
the coast sent the Flying Fish through the waves, or rather wavelets,
for the sea was almost like a sheet of glass.

"I've been up here once or twice after duck," rejoined Rob, "but it's a
tricky sort of a place to get through. However, I guess we'll make it."

As they drew nearer the shores the boys made out an opening which Rob
said was the Upper Inlet channel.

"Say, Tubby, get out the lead line and let's see how much water we
have," directed Rob as the color of the ocean began to change from dark
blue to a sort of greenish tinge, lightening in spots, where the shoals
were near to the surface, to a sandy yellow.

The stout lad took a position in the bow and swinging the lead about
his head cast it suddenly ahead of the Flying Fish's bow.

"Slow down," ordered Rob, and Merritt cut down the motor to not more
than two hundred revolutions a minute.

The lead line, tagged with different colored bits of flannel at each
fathom length, sang through the stout lad's fingers.

"By-a-quarter-three," he called out the next instant.

This meant that three fathoms and a quarter or eighteen feet three
inches of water was under the keel of the little craft.

"Nough fer a man-uv-war," grinned old Captain Hodgins.

Slowly the Flying Fish forged ahead till right under her bow lay a
patch of the yellow water.

"By-a-half-two," came a sharp hail from the fat youth, who had once
more heaved the lead.

"Cut her down some more," sharply ordered Rob, without turning his
head, "we draw only three feet so I guess we'll do nicely for a while."

"Great hop-toads, there's regular shark's teeth ahead," commented
Captain Hudgins, pointing to the still shallower water indicated by the
lightening tint of the channel.

"By-one-by-a-quarter-one!" came sharply from Tubby, as the Flying Fish
seemed hardly to crawl along the water.

"By-a-half!" came an instant later, meaning that only three feet of
water lay right ahead.

"Stop her," roared out Rob.

But he was too late. Instantly, almost as Merritt's hand had flown to
the lever, the nose of the Flying Fish poked into the sandbank and