Perry gathered in the course of the uncomplimentary remarks directed toward him that the crowd, being unable to find the dingey where they believed they had left it, had spent some twenty minutes searching up and down the beach, that subsequently they had waited there in the fog for a good forty minutes more and that eventually Perry Bush would sooner or later come to some perfectly deplorable end and that for their part they didn't care how soon it might be. By the time the _Follow Me_ was reached Perry was too worn out to offer any excuse. Cas, however, did it for him, and, as the others' tempers had somewhat sobered by then amusement succeeded anger. Perry faintly and vaguely described his wanderings about the harbour and the amusement increased. As dinner was announced about that time he was dragged to the cabin and propped in a corner of a bunk and fed out of hand. An hour later he was transported, somewhat recovered, to the _Adventurer_ by Harry and Tom Corwin and Wink Wheeler and delivered, together with his precious can of milk, into the hands of his ship-mates. The _Adventurer's_ tender bobbed about at the stern and the first person Perry set eyes on as he scrambled onto the bridge deck was Han. Perry fixed him with a scathing gaze. "Where," he demanded, "did you get to, idiot?" "Oh, I'll tell you about that," answered Han. "You see I was afraid about that poison-ivy and so I took a dip in the ocean. And--" "But I called you and called!" "Yes, and I answered a couple of times. And then I may have had my head under water." "A monstrous pity you didn't keep it there!" "When," continued Han, "I went to look for you I couldn't find you. So I--so I came back here." "Yes, you thought maybe I'd swum across, eh! Or found a boat?" "Sure! You did find a boat, didn't you?" "You make me tired," growled Perry amidst the laughter of the others. "And I hope that poison-ivy gets you good and hard!" "I don't believe it took," replied Han gently, "Maybe it wasn't poison-ivy, after all!" At that instant the outraged countenance of Ossie appeared in the companion way. "What," he demanded irately of Perry, "do you mean by bringing back half a gallon of sour milk?" Perry looked despairingly about at the unsympathetic and amused faces and wandered limply aft to the seclusion of the cockpit. The next morning the Adventure Club chugged around to Edgartown, and then, after putting in gasoline and water, set out at a little after eleven, on a fifty-mile run to Pleasant Bay. CHAPTER X THE _FOLLOW ME_ DISAPPEARS