Part 33 (1/2)
”No! no!” cried Josiah Crabtree. ”Tell the captain of the tug to hurry up! That we er--that we must make better time!”
”I will, sir,” said the captain of the schooner, and hurried forward to give the necessary order.
A big steamboat was pa.s.sing up the river and the wash from this sent the rowboat containing the Rover boys dancing up and down. The lads at the oars headed the craft to meet the rollers, and the schooner pa.s.sed further and further away.
”They are leaving us!” groaned Sam. ”Oh, what luck!”
”Mr. Rover!” yelled d.i.c.k, at the top of his lungs. ”Are you on board?
Rover! Anderson Rover! It's d.i.c.k! d.i.c.k!”
For fully a minute no answer came back. Then there was a commotion on the deck of the schooner and a man appeared, clad in a torn suit of clothing and hatless.
”d.i.c.k! Where are you?” was the exclamation, and the man rushed to the stern of the craft. ”d.i.c.k! And Tom and Sam! Help me!”
”It's father!” yelled d.i.c.k. ”Stop that schooner! Stop her, I say!”
”Get back there!” exclaimed Josiah Crabtree, catching Mr. Rover by the arm. ”Get back, I say! Help me, somebody! This man is crazy!”
He and Jesse Pelter hustled Anderson Rover back, and then the boys saw their father disappear from view. Swiftly the tug and the schooner gathered headway. The boys shouted in vain. They looked around for some other boat to come to their aid, but none was in sight. Then the schooner pa.s.sed down the Hudson River and the Rover boys were left in the rowboat, gazing at each other in dismay.
CHAPTER XIX
THE SEARCH FOR THE SCHOONER
”Anyway, we have got the name of the schooner,” remarked Sam, after a moment of silence. ”She's the Ellen Rodney.”
”And we ought to be able to follow her somehow,” added Tom.
”We must!” cried d.i.c.k. ”Let us get to sh.o.r.e and see what we can do.”
”Don't we get that dollar?” queried one of the boys who rowed the boat.
”Yes,” answered d.i.c.k, and handed the money over. ”Now get us to sh.o.r.e as quickly as possible.”
”If you want to catch that schooner, why don't you go downtown after her?” asked the second boy of the rowboat.
”Just what I was thinking of doing,” answered d.i.c.k. ”I think we can get down there ahead of them. The only question is, Can we get anybody down there to go out after the schooner?”
”You can get a boat at the Battery, if you're willing to pay for it.
Plenty of tug captains down there looking for jobs.”
”Then we'll get to the Battery as fast as possible,” said Tom.
The boys who had been rowing the boat were tired, so Tom and d.i.c.k took the oars, and thus the little craft was speedily brought back to the dock from which it had started.
”You can get an elevated train over there,” said one of the boys, pointing with his hand. ”It will take you right to the Battery.”
The Rover boys lost no time in leaving the dock and crossing the railroad tracks. Then they fairly ran to the nearest station of the elevated railroad. d.i.c.k purchased the tickets and dropped them in the box. Then came a wait of several minutes on the platform.