Jerry came tumbling around the corner, shouting:

"Oh, Chris, come quick! _Hurry!_"

I left Greg and ran after Jerry, and I'd been sitting so long humped
up on the rocks that my knees gave way and I barked my shins against
a sharp ledge. I didn't even know it until ever so long afterwards,
when I found a bruise as big as a saucer and remembered then. Jerry
didn't need to point so wildly out across the water; I saw the boat
before he could say a word. It was a catboat, quite far off, tacking
down from the Headland. The sail was orange, and we'd never seen an
orange sail in our harbor or anywhere, in fact, so we knew it must
be a strange boat.

Jerry pulled off his shirt like winking and stood there in his bare
arms waving it madly. We both began to shout before the catboat
people could possibly have heard us, but we thought that they might
see the white shirt flying up and down. The boat was tacking a long
leg and a short one. The long one carried it so far out that we
thought it was going to cross the mouth of the bay and not come near
enough to see us. Jerry stopped shouting just long enough to gasp:

"When she's all ready to go about on the short tack is the time to
yell loudest."

But the next short tack seemed to bring the boat no nearer than
before, and the long leg carried it so far away that it was no more
use shouting to the orange sail than to a stupid old herring-gull.

"Could you wave for a bit, Chris?" Jerry said. "My arms are off."

So I took the shirt and waved it by its sleeves, and the catboat
began another short tack. It was just then that we saw something
black flap-flapping against the sail.

"They've tied a coat or something to the flag halyard, and they're
running it up and down," Jerry said. "They're trying to get here,
but they _have_ to tack. Don't you _see_, Chris?"

Of course I saw, but I didn't blame Jerry for being snappy at the
last minute.

The next tack showed very plainly that the boat was really coming to
the Sea Monster, and somebody stood up in the stern and shouted. We
shouted back--one last howl--and then stood there panting, because
there was no use in wasting any more breath and our throats were
quite split as it was. When the catboat came a little nearer we saw
that there was only one man in it, and, sure enough, an old blue
jersey was tied to the flag halyard. The man turned the boat around
very neatly--I don't know the right sailing word for it--and
anchored. Then h