“Fellows,” said Harvey, “I’ll tell you the whole story just as soon as we get aboard and up sail. This is the greatest thing we ever did in all our lives; but it’s the minutes that count now, and we have got to get under way the quickest we ever did yet.” And then, as the boys hesitated, and Joe Hinman ventured the question, with something of suspicion in his tone that he could not all conceal, “Why, Jack, there’s no trouble, is there—no trouble—about the fire?” it suddenly dawned on Harvey that this sudden departure did have a queer look to it, and that he was, indeed, open to their suspicion. “Yes,” he cried, “there is trouble, and it’s about this fire; but it isn’t our trouble. The trouble is for the man that set it,—and we are going to make it for him. We’re going to catch him. Now will you hurry?” “Will we?” exclaimed George Baker. “Just watch us!” And every boy made a dash for the camp to secure anything he might need on a cruise down the bay. Harvey and Joe Hinman seized two big jugs and made off for the spring, whence they returned quickly. Then the entire crew piling into the small boat, they were soon aboard the _Surprise_. The anchor was up in a twinkling. The sails were never spread in such time. Almost as quickly as it takes to tell it, the yacht _Surprise_ was under way, and with Harvey at the wheel was standing out of the little harbour. Then, as they left the glare of the fire upon the waters astern, but still flaming like a giant beacon against the sky, Harvey, with his crew about him, narrated his extraordinary adventure with the strange man, and asserted his conviction that the man was none other than the same Chambers who had fled from the island not long before. “That is a fast boat, and we can never catch her in plain sailing,” said Allan Harding. “She is full half again as big as we, and she would sail around us a dozen times and then walk away from us without half-trying.” “I know that,” said Harvey, “and that is just why I am so anxious to catch up with him before he gets out of the western bay into the open sea. If we don’t get him in the bay we shall lose him. Now let’s overhaul everything, and be sure that something doesn’t break just as we come to the pinch.” There was little to be done, however, on that score; for, however carelessly they lived ashore, they had the true yachtsman’s spirit aboard the _Surprise_, and kept her shipshape. Then they set the club and jib topsails, for there was not much air stirring, and they drew the tender up close astern, so it would drag as little as possible.