Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/87

 Sonny Longlegs now. Looks like he thought sompin' was after him."

He pointed to the lad sprinting toward them with such speed as he might have exhibited in front of a legion of tigers.

"Hardy! Hardy!" panted the boy as he bounded up. "Come quick! Come quick!"

There was a note of tragic insistence in his tone, but Hardy was not the sort of fellow to be stampeded.

"Great guns! What's up now?" he demanded. "What's got into you, boy?"

"One—one—one of father's lifeboats—with a hole in it—on the shore there."

He pointed tremblingly at a line of boats on the sloping bank not far from the airplane.

"Why, you're crazy. One of your father's lifeboats! He's in Mexico!"

"But I know it is! I know it is!" insisted the lad. "I found my initials I cut on it a long time ago. You don't think the yacht's gone down, do you?"

He was already dragging Hardy along, while the grocer, in dumb astonishment, toddled after on his fat, round legs.