It was flung over. The two boats were now bobbing side by side, for
they were well out in the bay, and the sea was quite choppy. The tide
was running out, and help had come to the boys not any too soon.

The rope, passing from the bow of the _Dixie_, where it was made fast
to a ring bolt in the deck, was caught on to a cleat in the stern of
the other boat.

"You'll look after the steering; will you?" asked one of the men.

"Surely," answered Dray.

"Because there's nothing harder than towing a boat that yaws from side
to side," the man went on.

"We'll keep a straight course," declared the owner of the speedy boat
that had proved such a disappointment of late. "We know something
about gasoline craft."

"Glad to hear it," remarked one of the occupants of the rescuing boat,
in a grumbling sort of voice. "There's so many launched on the bay
now, with a lot of chaps running them who don't know any more than to
turn on the gasoline and switch on the spark."

"And girls, too," added another of the men. "Though I must say there
are some girls here who----"

"Easy there!" called one of the rescuers sharply.

He might have been speaking to his companion, who was attending to the
fastening of the towing rope, but to Jack it seemed as though there
was an injunction to be careful of what was said.

Somehow or other, though why he could not tell, Jack's suspicions were
aroused. He tried to get a good look at the faces of the men, but the
moon was hidden behind some clouds just then, and it was out of the
question. The light was too baffling.

"Well, I guess we're ready," announced the man who was making fast the
towing rope. "Now where do you fellows want to go? We can't promise to
take you home, as we have some business of our own to attend to."

Jack always said, afterward, that nothing could have been more
providential than the way the moon shone out brightly just as he was
about to reply.

He had it on the tip of his tongue to ask that, if possible, they be
landed near Denny's cabin, when a ray of moonlight glinted on the name
of the rescuing boat, painted on her stern. There Jack read the word:

_Pickerel._

"Great Scott!" he almost ejaculated aloud. "The boat that raced with
Cora! The same men who are after old Denny!"

Jack made up his mind in a flash. It would never do for the men to
know that he and his friends were on their way to save Denny from the
very fate the men had in store for him.

"Oh, if