Cheers greeted them as they approached. The news of what was going on had spread like wildfire, and all of Rockledge School was down at the shore, including Doctor Raymond, the head of the institution, and Mr. Leith and Mr. Carrier, two teachers. A doctor also had been summoned and many of the townspeople had hurried on foot and in autos to the spot.
There was a hubbub of excited exclamations, as the boat reached the little landing stage. The spectators had seen the figures dragged aboard, but from that distance could not tell whether some of them were alive or dead.
The moment the boat slid alongside the float, eager hands were outstretched to help, and great was the relief when it was found that no life had been lost.
The rescued ones were hurried up to the school, where their wet clothes were stripped from them and they were given hot drinks and placed between warm blankets.
Doctor Raymond was so busy in supervising this work that he had no time more than to tell the rescuers that he was proud of them and would see them later in his study. But others crowded around them and made much of them, while showering them with questions.
“It was nothing at all,” said Bobby with characteristic modesty. “We simply happened to be nearest and the boat was handy and we piled in and rowed out to them. Any one else would have done the same if the chance had come to them, and you fellows are making too much out of it.”
“That’s all very well,” said Skeets Brody with a grin, “but I notice just the same that when anything has to be done and done in a hurry it’s Bobby Blake that’s ‘Johnny on the spot’.”
CHAPTER III
A CLOSE CALL
Now that the danger was over, the crowd began to melt away, and the boys, who in the excitement had forgotten all about lunch, suddenly remembered that they had been overlooking what was to all of them a duty and to most of them a pleasure and made a break for the dining hall.
Pee Wee was especially remorseful that he had so far forgotten himself.
“Gee!” he observed, as he took out his watch. “Lunch time has been over for more than half an hour. I hope they haven’t cleared the table.”
“If they haven’t, you will when you get to it,” jibed Skeets. “That’s one place where you can be depended on to work.”
“That isn’t work – it’s fun,” admitted Pee Wee, as he started to put his watch back in his pocket. But in his haste it dropped from his fingers and fell with a bang to the ground.
There was an exclamation from the boys, who crowded around Pee Wee as he looked ruefully at the watch, whose crystal had been broken.
“Did it stop?” asked Fred.
“Of course it stopped when it hit the ground,” put in Billy. “What did you expect it to do – go right through to China?”
Pee Wee favored Billy with a glare that expressed his opinion of that lad’s frivolity.
“Of all the idiots – ” he began, and then words failed him and he tapped his forehead significantly.
Nothing abashed, the graceless Billy grinned.
“It wasn’t so bad,” he said complacently. “I don’t know how those things come to me but they do – just like that,” he added snapping his fingers airily.
“He hates himself – I don’t think,” remarked Fred, making a playful pass at Billy, who dodged so adroitly that the blow passed over his head and caught the luckless Pee Wee in the stomach almost making him drop his watch again.
“Say, what are you up to?” he demanded indignantly, rubbing the injured spot with his hand. “Haven’t I had hard luck enough for one day without you fellows rubbing it in?”
“You seem to be doing all the rubbing,” laughed Fred. “Sorry, old boy, but that stomach of yours is so big that nothing can miss it.”
“Stop picking on poor little Pee Wee,” chuckled Sparrow. “Cheer up, Pee Wee. What if another Ingersoll did bite the dust? You’ll have a good excuse now for being late at recitations.”
This silver lining to the cloud was not without its effect on Pee Wee, and putting the battered watch into his pocket, successfully this time, he hurried to the dining hall, where the savory odors of the meal that the housekeeper had prepared soon made him forget all his troubles.
The boys at the tables were bubbling over with interest at the stirring events they had witnessed, and Bobby and the rest of his crew had all they could do in answering the questions that were showered upon them.
“Don’t you feel awfully sore and used up, Bobby?” queried Howell Purdy, his voice a little muffled because his mouth was so full.
“Not so very,” responded Bobby. “I suppose I will to-morrow though. The second day is always worse than the first.”
“If our boys ever pulled that way in a race, we’d have no trouble in beating out Belden,” remarked Shiner. “You fellows were simply lifting that boat out of the water. As it was, you didn’t get there a minute too soon either.”
“Not a second too soon,” corrected Sparrow. “That fellow who couldn’t swim will never come nearer to death than he was to-day. My heart was just about in my mouth when I saw him go down.”
“Lee had a close call too when he was pulled overboard,” put in Skeets.
“Oh, as for that, Lee can swim like a fish,” remarked Fred. “But he got a wetting just the same and had to sit in his wet clothes until we got back to the float. I hope it hasn’t hurt him.”
“He isn’t very strong, but he’s as plucky as they make them,” commented Skeets, “and he certainly knows how to swing an oar.”
“We had one bit of luck to help us out,” said Bobby, “and that was that one of the boats hadn’t been put away in canvas. If it had been, we could never have got it out in time. As it was, it was close to the door, so we could slide it out in a jiffy.”
When at last the meal was finished and even Pee Wee had had enough to eat, Bobby’s first thought was of Lee. He saw Mr. Carrier hurrying through the hall and asked him about the Southern boy whom he had already learned to like very much.
“Lee Cartier was very badly chilled,” was Mr. Carrier’s response, “and that, combined with over exertion, has made the doctor a little anxious about him. I guess it would be better for you boys not to see him for a while. But the other boys are getting along all right, and they just told me that they would like to see you and the other members of the boat crew that rescued them. By the way, Blake, you and the other boys who went with you did nobly to-day and I’m proud of you. It was a splendid piece of work.”
Bobby flushed at the praise and would have disclaimed any special credit, but Mr. Carrier smiled and went on. Bobby hunted up Sparrow and Fred, and the three went to the room which had been placed at the disposal of the boys they had rescued.
They found the four seated before a glowing fire, wrapped in hot blankets and eating with evident relish an abundant meal that had been brought up to them. Apart from their rumpled hair, they bore no sign of the ordeal through which they had passed, and which had so nearly cost the lives of all of them.
They jumped to their feet as their three rescuers came in and surrounded them, shaking hands and offering fervent thanks for the help they had brought them at the moment of their deepest need.
“Why, you are Belden boys!” exclaimed Bobby, as he took a good look at them. “I suppose I ought to have known that before, but I was so busy that I didn’t have a chance to see much of your faces.”
“Then, too, we looked so much like drowned rats that you probably wouldn’t have recognized us anyway,” laughed the eldest one of the quartette. “Yes, we’re Belden boys, all