or. A hundred yards away a cluster of boys on
the deck of a sturdy cabin-cruiser swung their caps and sent a hail
across. Steve seized the megaphone from its rack and answered.

"_Follow Me_, ahoy!" he shouted.

"Ahoy yourself!" was the ribald reply. "We're coming over!"

The crew of the _Follow Me_ tumbled into a tiny dingey, cast off and
were lost to sight beyond the intervening craft. Then they reappeared,
their small boat so deep that the water almost spilled over the sides,
Wink Wheeler struggling with a pair of ludicrously short oars and the
other five laughingly urging him on.

"Throw a couple of fenders over, Han," instructed Steve, "and stand by
with your boat-hook."

The _Follow Me's_ tender crept alongside amidst noisy greetings, Perry
performing excruciatingly on the whistle until pulled away, and in
another moment the visitors were aboard. They were a nice-looking,
upstanding lot, already well sunburned by a week afloat. Wink Wheeler
was the oldest of the six, for he was eighteen. Harry Corwin, Bert Alley
and Caspar Temple were seventeen and George Browne, or "Brownie," as he
was called, and Tom Corwin were sixteen. First of all they had to see
the boat and so the whole gathering trooped from one end to the other,
exclaiming and admiring.

"The _Follow Me_'s a regular tub compared with this palace," said Harry
Corwin. "Why, there isn't anything finer than this along the South
Shore, I guess!"

"Don't you call our boat names," protested "Brownie." "The _Follow Me_
may not be as nifty as this, but she's one fine little boat, just the
same. How long did it take you to come from New York, Joe?"

"Nearly four hours and a half, but we ran slow. I guess we could have
done it in three hours easily if we'd tried to. This boat can do twenty
at a pinch. How fast is the _Follow Me?_"

"She's done eighteen," answered Harry Corwin, "but fourteen's her
average gait. She burns up gas like the dickens when she does any more.
Yesterday we went to Freeport in fifty-seven minutes, and that's a good
seventeen and a half miles. She had to hump herself, though."

After the wonders of the _Adventurer_ had been exhausted the boys
gathered on the bridge deck and Steve laid a chart on the floor and they
discussed their plans. It had already been decided that they should
cruise northward as far as Maine. As there was no hurry in getting
there, they were to take things easy, stopping at such points as
promised interest and