"Fog\'s lifting, sir!"

The Scoutmaster opened his eyes and blinked at the welcome light. The good news seemed too soon to be true, but right ahead the sun was visible—a watery disc looming faintly through the dispersing vapour.

"Nine o\'clock!" exclaimed Mr. Graham. "Have I slept all that time?"

"Only four hours, sir," replied Jock. "Nothing\'s happened, so we let you sleep on."

Stiffly, the Scoutmaster sat up. A grating makes a hard bed, oilskins and greatcoat notwithstanding. Looking over the port coaming of the cockpit he found that the range of vision was limited to a distance of about a hundred yards, but there were indications that matters would improve in that direction. The wind too had increased, and was blowing more to the starboard quarter.

"That\'s much better, lads!" exclaimed the Scoutmaster. "I hope we\'ve seen the last of the fog. It hung about much longer than usual."

"Where are we, sir?" asked the three Sea Scouts in chorus.

"That\'s a problem I\'ll leave you to find out," was the reply. "Get hold of the chart and let each of you pin-prick the position you think we are in. The winner gets a coco-nut when we put into port."

This competition kept the crew busy, as they argued amongst themselves and plied parallel rulers and dividers in an attempt to solve the problem.

The tail-end of the fog cleared fairly rapidly. By ten o\'clock the horizon was visible, but land was nowhere in view.

"Shin aloft and see if you can sight land, Hayes," said the Scoutmaster.

Hayes, lithe and active as a kitten, went up to the cross-trees, grasping the main halliards and using the mast-hoops as foot-holds. Arrived at his perch twenty-five feet above the sea, he surveyed the horizon.

"There\'s land on our port quarter, sir," he reported. "Or it may be clouds," he added dubiously.

"Then that\'s the high ground behind the Lizard," thought Mr. Graham. "Steer nor\'-nor\'-east, Desmond," he added aloud, "and we\'ll make Plymouth Sound in a few hours."

At noon, when the Sea Scouts went to dinner, land was not in sight—not even from the cross-trees. At three in the afternoon, a faint blur to the nor\'-west looked like land. Half an hour later the surmise proved to be correct.

It was a rocky coast, broken by lofty hills, but nowhere could Mr. Graham pick out the triangular-shaped promontory of Rame Head, the western portal to the approaches of Plymouth.

It was land, and that was all to be said about it. Somewhere within a few miles was a harbour. The Scoutmaster had no intention of having another night at sea, if it could possibly be avoided.

Again and again he examined the chart, and consulted The Channel Pilot, hoping to recognize the coast by means of the illustrations given in the book.

It might be Falmouth, or Fowey, or perhaps Plymouth—that gap in the coastline. He hoped the last, but he was far from feeling confident about it. Instinctively, the crew realized that their Scoutmaster was out of his reckoning. They treated it as a huge joke.

With a pair of binoculars slung round his neck, Desmond went aloft. Scanning the coast-line from his post of vantage he at length solved the knotty problem.

"It\'s the Start, sir!" he reported confidently. "And I can see Prawle Point, where we semaphored about young Gregory."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Graham sharply.

"It is, sir," declared the Patrol Leader.

Telling Desmond to come down, the Scoutmaster went aloft. Desmond was right. Through the powerful binoculars, the white lighthouse buildings on Start Point and the signal station at Prawle Point were unmistakably clear.

"That settles it," decided Mr. Graham. "We\'ll make for Dartmouth."

"Dartmouth, sir!" exclaimed Desmond. "I thought we were going to pick up Bedford and Coles at Plymouth?"

"Out of the question," rejoined the Scoutmaster. "We can\'t beat to wind\'ard all that way and retrace our course. We\'ll wire them to join us at Dartmouth."

About twenty minutes later a topsail schooner, close hauled on the port tack, showed evident intention of crossing the Spindrift\'s bows. By the "Rule of the Road at Sea" the latter, running free on the same tack, had to make way for her.

As the ketch passed astern of the schooner, whose name, painted in vivid yellow letters, was the Gloria, of Fowey, a short, thick-set man, wearing a reefer suit and a bowler-hat, hailed the Spindrift.

"Ahoy!" he bawled. "Can you heave-to, an\' take a lad ashore?"

"What\'s the game, I wonder," remarked Mr. Graham to his companions. "Another sort of Gregory stunt?"

Apparently the skipper of the Gloria considered his request acceded to, for he ran the schooner up into the wind and backed his top-sail. The Spindrift also put her helm down, and hove-to about fifty yards from the schooner\'s starboard quarter.

"Anything wrong?" queried the Scoutmaster.

"Nothin\' to speak of," was the reply. "\'E\'s nephew o\' mine, an\' his old mother do live at Dartmouth. Us\'ll pick him up when we loads up at Plymouth for Littlehampton!"

"Right-o," rejoined Mr. Graham. "We\'ll put him ashore. We\'ll send our dinghy."

Although the sea was calm, the Scoutmaster decided that it was not worth the risk to run the Spindrift alongside the schooner. Findlay jumped into the dinghy and rowed off, returning with the passenger.

The crew of the Spindrift were not particularly impressed at the appearance of the newcomer. He was a freckled, red-haired youth of about eighteen, with a loose lip, and greenish eyes that had a strained, worried look. He waved his hand to the Gloria as the schooner filled her top-sails and resumed her course.

The youth was not at all backward at asking questions. He wanted to know all about the Spindrift and her crew, where they came from and where they were bound for; why they weren\'t running the motor, and when did they expect to make Dartmouth?

On the other hand, he was very communicative when the Sea Scouts questioned him, and was as outspoken as the misjudged Gregory had been reticent.

Choosing the inshore passage inside the Skerries, Mr. Graham suggested that it was time for another meal. Findla............