That done, Bob took the wheel, Dan perched himself in the bow, and Nelson started the engine at the slowest speed. The _Vagabond_, with a shrill screech from her whistle that so surprised Dan that he nearly tumbled off the bow, pushed the fog aside and crept through the silence. All went well for a moment. Then came a quick warning from Dan. “Back her!” he yelled. “Land dead ahead!” “Back her!” called Bob, swirling the wheel around. There was a sudden commotion under the launch’s stern as the propeller was reversed and, at the same instant, a tiny jar as her bow settled on to the sandy bottom. Dan ran back and seized the boat hook. “Tell Nel to keep her backing,” he called, “and I’ll see if I can’t shove her off.” But it was a five minutes’ task, and had not the tide been coming in instead of running out it is likely that the _Vagabond_ would have stayed where she was for a good twelve hours. But finally her bow was free once more and Dan shoved and panted over the boat hook until the launch was headed away and the dim line of shore was gone from sight again. “All right now,” he called, and Nelson again threw the clutch forward. In the excitement of getting afloat they had forgotten the whistle, but now Nelson made up for lost time, and the launch poked her way gingerly along to an accompaniment of distressful shrieks. “How are we going to know when we get back to where we left Tommy?” asked Bob down the companion way. “We’ll just have to guess at it,” was the answer. “If we get where Tommy can hear the whistle we’ll be doing all right.” Several minutes passed. Then came another caution from the bow. “Land on the port bow,” called Dan. “Hold her off a bit more, Bob.” “All right,” said Dan a moment later. “Can’t see anything now. Seems to me, though, we ought to be far enough.” “I guess we are,” answered Bob dryly. “We’re out on the bar, I should say.” “What do you mean?” “Don’t you feel the swells? If we aren’t in the Sound we’re pretty near it.” “But how can we be? We’ve been going up the river toward New London, haven’t we?” “I thought we had, but we haven’t, I guess. Say, Nel, come up here a minute.” Nelson appeared and agreed with Bob. “Either we are somewhere around the mouth of the river or else we’re in a steamboat’s wake; and we haven’t heard any pass. Wait a bit.” He went down and stopped the engine. “Now,” he said as he came back, “let’s have that boat hook a minute.” Dan passed it to him and he dropped it into the water, keeping hold of the end. The submerged portion floated back against the hull. Nelson pulled it up and tried again over the stern. “We’re just about broadside to the current,” he announced. “And I’m blest if I know where we are. Best thing we can do is to drop anchor, I guess.”