Page:Fairview Boys at Lighthouse Cove.djvu/86

82 right, and if you want to go to the right you twist the wheel to the left."

"I should think you'd get all twisted up!" exclaimed Sammy.

"Well, you might, at first, but once you've learned to use a sea wheel you won't want any other," went on Silas. "I'm not saying but what it might not have been better at the start, for every boat to have a wheel you could turn in the direction you wanted to go, but as long as they have sea wheels you might as well learn that way. Now we'll begin."

In turn he let the boys handle the wheel, sending the boat this way and that, until they found how quickly the Skip responded to her rudder.

At first each of the lads got a little confused, and turned the wheel the wrong way. But soon they remembered, and when Silas, pretending he was the captain, ordered them to go to the right or left they did do it without any trouble.

They passed several other boats from time to time, and Silas showed how to get by them without getting too far out of the channel, or without passing too close to the other craft. There was a compressed air whistle on the Skip and the boys took great delight in blowing this.

"It's a heap more fun on a trip like this than trailing that queer old Professor Watson!" exclaimed Bob.

"That's right," said Frank. "I don't believe we'll bother with him any more."

"No, I guess I was wrong about that pirate gold," admitted Sammy, and his chums laughed, for this was the first time he had ever given up. But he was so interested in the motor boat that he thought of little else.

The trip to the bridge, just above the inlet, was rather a long one, but the boys enjoyed every bit of it, and they were sorry when the Skip pulled up to a dock, and Silas announced that