Patrol Leader Desmond\'s chief inclination, upon arriving at Bude railway station, was to make the acquaintance of the Spindrift as soon as possible. He had two reasons for so doing: he wanted to see what the yacht was like; he also wished to rest his injured foot in order to get it well as quickly as he could. The thought of being an idler on board, when there was plenty of work for all hands, was repugnant to a fellow of his energetic character.

On making inquiries, he was directed to follow a footpath crossing a stream and leading to the lock gates.

"That\'s the Spindrift," he said to himself, as the slender masts of a small craft came into view, "or perhaps she\'s that \'two sticker\' lying farther up. I\'d better ask someone."

The first person he met was a freckled-faced, curly-haired seafaring man with earrings. He wore no hat, but the visible part of his attire consisted of a loose canvas jumper, a pair of tanned trousers, and brown canvas shoes. He only wanted a musket slung across his shoulder, brace of flint-lock pistols, and a sheath-knife to be the living counterpart of a seventeenth-century buccaneer.

"Please can you tell me if that is the yacht Spindrift?" inquired Desmond politely.

The man looked him up and down before replying. "Ay, \'tes \'er," he announced briefly.

"Thank you," rejoined the Patrol Leader, and was about to resume his way when the man addressed a string of questions uttered in the broadest Cornish dialect.

Desmond shook his head. He did not understand a single sentence.

The man merely grinned, and, without attempting to repeat his words, rolled unsteadily away.

"Funny sort," soliloquized the Patrol Leader. "Looks as if he hasn\'t lost his sea-legs. But I\'ve found out what I wanted to know."

Arriving at the canal basin, Desmond saw that the ketch was lying alongside the farthermost wall. To get to her necessitated a considerable détour, and, in addition, he had to cross a plank bridge over the lock gates.

As he limped along, Desmond took stock of the little craft. She was spoon-bowed, with a raking transom. There was no name painted on her stern, nor anywhere else as far as the Patrol Leader could discover. Her tanned sails were uncoated and loosely furled ready to be hoisted.

Getting on board with no little difficulty, Desmond found that the cabin doors were locked, which was rather what he expected. The circular hatch in the fore-deck was, however, open.

"Good enough," thought the lad. "I can get into the cabin through the door in the for\'ard bulkhead."

He lowered himself into the fo\'c\'sle. For some seconds he was almost blinded by the sudden change from the dazzling sunshine to the gloom below, especially as his bulk intercepted most of the light from the open hatch.

Rather to his disappointment he found the sliding door closed and bolted on the inside. If he were to gain admittance it would be necessary to obtain the key from the person in charge of the yacht. Desmond was hot, tired, and feeling a fair amount of pain in his injured toe.

"Not worth the fag," he contended. "I\'ll turn in here."

The fo\'c\'sle boasted a couple of cots, one folded back against either side of the boat. What struck Desmond as being remarkable was the presence of a number of enamelled cups, saucers, and plates that badly wanted washing up, together with the fragments of a meal consisting of bully beef, sardines, and tinned apricots.

"I expect the workmen have been grubbing here," he hazarded. "They\'re not Scouts, or they would never have left the place in such a mess."

There was a Primus stove in the gimbals, and close to it a saucepan half filled with lukewarm water. On a nail in the sliding door was a tea-towel.

Desmond set to work with a will to wash up the plates and dishes and to stow them away. This done—it was hot work in the confined space, what with the sun shining on deck and the heat of the stove below—the Patrol Leader felt more tired than before.

Lowering one of the cots, and using a sail-bag for a pillow, Desmond turned in. For a while his toe throbbed painfully, then the desire for sleep overcame every other sensation, and he was soon in a deep, dreamless slumber.

Ten minutes later Tom Truscott and Dick Wilde, part-owners of the 8-ton, centre-board ketch Spanker, came hurrying along the canal bank to the accompaniment of a series of exhortations to, "\'Urry up if yer want to get through afore yon schooner locks in," from the energetic lock-keeper.

Both men were young, hefty, full of action, and keen yachtsmen. They had come "round the Land", and were making their way by easy stages to Penarth. Three days previously they had put into Bude through stress of weather, and were about to set sail for Lundy Island and the South Wales coast.

There was little time to be lost. Men on the breakwater were tracking-in a topsail schooner, and, as it was close on high water, the vessel was coming straight into the canal basin. Directly the gates were open there was an opportunity for the Spanker to go out under headsails before the limited expanse was still further impeded by the arrival of the topsail schooner.

Truscott and Wilde were deft hands at their work. They went about it with the minimum of noise. Since the yacht was moored alongside a wall, there were merely ropes to be cast off and headsails hoisted. Getting up the anchor to the accompaniment of the rattling of a winch and the clanking of chain cable did not figure in the operation. Almost as silently as a wraith the ketch glided through the lock, and, with the wind well on the port quarter, stood steadily seaward.

Truscott was at the helm, while his companion, after descending into the cabin and lowering the centre-board, proceeded to set first mizzen and then mainsail.

Half an hour later the north Cornish coast grew dim in the summer haze.

"Thought we\'d have found more wind out here," remarked Truscott. "What about setting the topsail?"

"Right-o," assented Wilde. "Ten to one we\'ll have to douse it before we make Lundy. There\'s wind about—plenty of it before long."

"All right then," said his companion. "Don\'t bother about the jack-yarder. Send the jib-headed topsail aloft. She\'ll carry short for all the wind we\'re likely to get to-day."

Wilde went for\'ard to get the required sail, which was stowed in a bag in one of the fo\'c\'sle lockers.

"Jehoshaphat!" he ejaculated. "We\'ve a jolly stowaway on board, old man! There\'s a boy sound asleep in one of the fo\'c\'sle cots."

"Good job we did lock the cabin, then," rejoined Truscott. "What sort of young blighter is he?"

"A Sea Scout," announced the other.

"A Sea Scout?" snorted Truscott contemptuously. "Never came across one yet who was any good. Sort of glorified beach-combers—useless when by chance they do go to sea. I hope to goodness he doesn\'t muster his bag in our fo\'c\'sle. What\'s to be done with him."

"He\'s here on board," said Wilde, stating an obvious fact.

"And here he stops," added Truscott grimly. "If he doesn\'t like it that\'s his funeral. I\'m not putting back to land a rotten stowaway. Get him out of it—sling a bucket of water over him!"

"That\'s all very well," objected Wilde with a laugh. "But who\'s going to mop up the fo\'c\'sle? I know a way."

From one of the cockpit lockers he produced a long metal fog-horn—a kind of exaggerated trumpet. Going for\'ard he lowered the instrument until the horn was within six inches of the sleeping lad\'s face, then, distending his cheeks, Wilde blew a long, ear-splitting, discordant blast.

Intensified by the confined space the terrific roar awakened Desmond only too effectually. He sat up, caught his head on one of the deck-beams, and subsided with his hands held to his aching forehead.

"Sorry, I am really!" exclaimed the genuinely repentant Wilde, who had never anticipated such a sequel. "I only meant to turn you out. What are you doing here?"

Desmond made no reply. He was a little dazed, deafened, and completely mystified at being rudely awakened to unfamiliar surroundings. He slid out of the cot and sat upon one of the lockers, blinking at the disturber of his slumbers.

"What are you doing here?" repeated Wilde.

"This is the Sea Scouts\' yacht Spindrift," declared Desmond. "I——"

"First I heard of it," interrupted the other with a laugh. "This is the Spanker of Dartmouth, for Penarth; and at Penarth you\'ll be set ashore, unless we drop across some Bude fishing-boats. That isn\'t likely, as they are generally away down west\'ard."

"Then I\'ve made a mistake," said the Patrol Leader.

"First time I\'ve known a Scout to admit that," rejoined Wilde drily. "However, come aft a............