WHEN THE ENGINE FAILED.
Joe Hartley’s mind, while not as active as Nat’s, worked quickly, and he
sensed instantly a connection between the presence in the engine room of
Sartorius and the stoppage of the motor. And this, although he could not
imagine what possible purpose the man could have in such actions.
Sartorius had tiptoed back into the cabin, where lay Mr. Jenkins,
without casting a glance behind him. Joe crept forward with the same
caution till he gained a point of vantage from which he could see into
the lighted cabin.
Lounging back in a swivel chair with a magazine in his hand and a cigar
in his mouth was the black-bearded doctor. On his face was a look of
content and repose. Apparently he was utterly oblivious to the wild
tossing of the _Nomad_ in the rough sea, and had not Joe been certain
that it was their more or less unwelcome guest whom he had seen sneak
out of the engine room, he would have been inclined to doubt his own
eyesight.
Ding-dong’s sudden reappearance chased these thoughts swiftly out of his
mind.
“Where on earth have you been?” he demanded, staring open-mouthed at
Ding-dong as if he had been a ghost.
“Wer-wer-what’s happened to the engines?” sputtered Ding-dong anxiously.
Joe drew him aside.
“I came down here the instant they stopped,” he said. “I caught our
black-whiskered friend sneaking out of the engine room into the cabin
with a monkey wrench in his hand. I’m sure he tampered with the engine.”
“Phew! That’s rer-er-right in line with what I went on deck to tell Nat
about.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just this. Happening to pe-pe-peek into the c-c-c-cabin a while back, I
sus-sus-saw Wer-Wer-Whiskers kneeling in front of one of
Jer-Jer-Jenkins’ trunks. He couldn’t get it open, and then I saw him
tip-toe over to Jer-Jenkins and start to go through his pockets. I
ber-ber-beat it up on deck to tell Nat.”
“Then you must have been going up the port companionway while I was
coming down the starboard, and that’s how we missed running into each
other.”
“Ther-ther-that’s about it.”
“What did Nat say?”
“To ger-ger-get the engines going and not mind anything else just now.”
“That’s right; we’re in a bad fix. I’ll stay down here and help you go
over the motor. I can be of more use down here than up on deck.”
While the _Nomad_ took sickening swings and plunges, at times rolling
over on her beam ends, the two lads went over the motor painstakingly.
It was no light task in that turmoil and fury of wind and wave. Every
once in a while, when the little craft took an exceptionally bad plunge,
they exchanged glances which plainly said:
“Are we going to get out of this alive?”
Once in a while Joe stole away to take a look at the doctor, whom he
suspected of tampering with the motor. Each time he discovered no
difference in the man’s strange repose. He might have been taking his
ease on a Pullman drawing-room car instead of being on board a craft
with which the elements were playing battledore and shuttlecock, for all
the signs he showed of uneasiness. Joe did notice, though, that from
time to time he cast glances from the magazine in which he appeared so
much interested toward the lounge on which lay extended Mr. Jenkins’
senseless form.
It was on his return from one of these excursions that Joe was hailed by
Ding-dong in an excited voice. Above the racket of the storm and the
shouting of the voice of the wind there was not much danger of their
being heard in the cabin.
“Lul-lul-look here, Joe; the pur-pur-precious rascal!”
The young engineer pointed to the carburetor of the two forward
cylinders.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“The auk-auk-auk-auxiliary air valves have been tampered with, that’s
what, and lul-lul-look on the stern cylinders; the spark plugs have been
tightened on till the porcelain cracked. No wonder she went out of
business.”
“Crackers! The fellow who did that was no greenhorn round an engine.”
“Well, I gug-guess not. Just watch me get busy. We’ll attend to his
nu-nu-nibs later on.”
Joe got fresh spark plugs from the locker where the extra parts were
kept, and, while Ding-dong fitted them, he started adjusting the
carburetor which had been so skillfully tampered with. They were in the
midst of this work when the tall form of Dr. Sartorius appeared in the
doorway between the cabin and the engine room.
“What is the matter? What has happened?” he asked, as if noticing for
the first time the stoppage of the engines.
“The motor stopped, that’s all,” spoke up Joe sarcastically.
“Dear me, in this storm that might have been serious,” said the doctor,
holding on to the casement of the doorway to steady himself.
“I guess the fellow that did it didn’t know that we might all have gone
to the bottom, or maybe he’d have thought a second time,” sputtered Joe,
red-hot with indignation and not caring a snap if he showed it. He
stared straight at the other as he spoke, and he could have sworn that
under his steady, accusing gaze the doctor paled and averted his eyes.
“But you have it fixed now?” inquired the doctor after a second,
ignoring Joe’s peppery remark.
“Oh, yes, we’ve got it fixed all right, and we’ll take precious good
care it doesn’t get out of order again for _any_ cause,” exploded Joe;
“and another thing, doctor, we boys regard this engine room as private
property. Will you please retire to the cabin?”
With a shrug of his shoulders, the doctor turned, and Joe shut and
locked the door behind him.
“We’ll have no more meddling on board here,” he muttered.
In a few minutes Ding-dong announced that all was ready to try the motor
once more. Joe switched on the electric self-starting appliance and the
cylinders began to cough and chug welcomely. But it took some time
longer to get them properly adjusted. At last the task was completed,
however, and once more the _Nomad_ was able to battle for life. No
longer a helpless plaything of the giant rollers, she fought them
gallantly, with her heart beating strong and true again.
Joe brewed coffee and got cold meat and bread from a locker, and the
boys took turns relieving each other at wheel and engine. In the driving
spume and under the dark clouds that went whistling by above their heads
it was impossible to see more than a few yards before them. They had not
the slightest idea how far they might be off the coast.
In the middle of all this anxiety and turmoil, Joe got the fright of his
life. He was on the bridge, holding the _Nomad_ to her course as well as
he could—considering the drift she had made when the motor was
idle—when, out of the storm, terror, real and thrilling, swept down upon
him. Above the crest of a big wave there suddenly appeared the wallowing
hull of another motor boat! She was smaller than the _Nomad_ and was
making dangerously bad weather of it.
Joe had hardly time to see the other craft before she was flung toward
the _Nomad_ like a stone out of a catapult. Joe spun the spokes of the
_Nomad’s_ wheel furiously, but with her rudder clear out of the water
half the time the motor craft did not respond as obediently to her wheel
as usual.
“Look out! You’ll run us down!” bawled Joe to a figure he saw crouching
behind the cabin of the other boat.
“Our engine’s broken down!” came the answer, flung toward the young
helmsman by the wind. “Help us!”
Above the bulwarks of the other boat, as the two small craft swept by in
the storm rack within a few inches of each other, appeared two other
heads. Joe caught their shouts for aid and frantically rang the signal
bell to summon the others on deck. Nat and Ding-dong came tumbling up to
ascertain what fresh accident had happened. They arrived just in time to
see the other motor boat, a white-painted, dainty-looking craft, swept
onward amid the towering seas.
“They’ve broken down—need help—what can we do?” bawled Joe into Nat’s
ear.
The leader of the Motor Rangers looked troubled. The other craft was by
this time wind-driven some distance from them. To try to overtake her
would be a most risky maneuver. Nat saw in his first glance at the other
boat that she was not fitted at all for outside work. She was evidently
a mere pleasure craft which had probably been overtaken unexpectedly by
the northwester before she had had time to make port.
It was a trying dilemma that faced those on the _Nomad_. Below, they had
what was in all probability a dying man. At any rate, his life depended
upon the speed with which they could make port. On the other hand, three
human beings equally doomed to destruction, if help did not speedily
reach them, had just been driven by, the helpless victims of the storm.
Nat and his chums found themselves facing a question which comes to few
men, and assuredly to still fewer lads of their ages. As usual, the
others looked to Nat for a decision. But it was longer than usual in
coming. Young Trevor felt to the full the heavy responsibility that lay
upon him in this crisis. If he took after the storm-wracked pleasure
craft with its human cargo, he was running a grave risk of losing all
their lives without saving the others. On the other hand, the appeal for
help from the powerless victims of the storm had struck a chord in Nat’s
heart which was never unresponsive. In the course of their adventurous
careers the Motor Rangers had aided and benefited many a human being,
but never before had they encountered any in such urgent need of succor
as those who had just flung their prayer for aid broadcast on the wings
of the wind.
“Well, what’s the decision?” shouted Joe, as the three lads stood side
by side on the wildly swaying bridge.
“To put her about. We’ll go after them,” was Nat’s response, as with
firm hands on the wheel he swung the _Nomad_ full into the teeth of the
gale.