The _Tramp_ was soon headed for the spot where they could see their comrades waving their arms wildly as if afraid the second boat in the race might pass them by. "Same old story?" asked Jack, as he brought alongside and gripped the hands of the forlorn shipwrecked travelers. "Rotten luck!" groaned Nick, shaking his head dolefully. "I'm pining away, fellows, inch by inch. Why, my clothes are ready to drop off me, I'm getting so like a scarecrow. Mebbe you don't believe me, but it's a fact. And I'm that nervous I keep quivering all the time like a--a----" "A bowl full of jelly;" burst out Jimmie. "Sure, I do belave ye, Buster. And as Jack and me sail along so cheerful loike, me thoughts often fly till ye, and I fale that only for that stubborn will ye'd have gone and given up long ago." "What's wrong this time, George?" asked Jack. "Oh! everything now," replied the disgusted skipper of the _Wireless_. "No use in my trying to tinker with the job. It will take a practical machinist to overhaul the plagued contraption. I guess you'll have to give us a tow to Memphis, where I can put a man to work getting this engine in some sort of shape." "All right!" Jack exclaimed. "And the sooner we start the better, if we want to make it before dark. Get a line out, and we'll fasten to this cleat at our stern. Then we can talk as we move along; because Jimmie and myself have got a lovely little fairy story to tell you, to pass away the time." Nick looked at the others suspiciously. "Now, what's been coming your way, I'd just like to know?" he grumbled. "Never saw such luck as you have in all my life. 'Tain't fair, that's what. Here I have all the tortures, the scares and the duckings, too, when I've lost my swimming wings; and you fellows gobble everything that comes along in the way of fun." "Sorry," laughed Jack; "but they will keep piling these things upon us. We have nothing to do with it at all, Buster. Only when it happens, we just have to get out of the hole the best way we can, you know." "I just bet, now, you've met up with them old bank smashers again. Look at 'em grin would you, George. Ten to one they grabbed the fellers and recovered all that fine boodle we read about! It would be just like Jack's luck!" "We did that same, thank ye, Buster," said Jimmie, assuming a proud attitude, with a hand thrust into the bosom of his coat, and his chest thrown out. "They did!" shrieked Buster, falling back. "Do you hear that, George? Ah, me! why was I born under an unlucky star? Get busy now, Jack, and tell us all about it. Next to being a hero myself I like to hear about you doing big things. Reel off the yarn now, and don't you dare hold back a single thrill." Of course the other boys were deeply interested in what Jack had to tell. They stopped him many times to ask questions, under the belief that he was not going deeply enough into details. But finally the story was told.