DISABLED
"How much longer you going to be?" asked Mr. Pepper Sneed, as he saw
Russ change slightly the position of the camera.
"Oh, not much longer now," was the answer. "I have about all they'll
want, I guess. This is only a sort of 'cut-in' effect, anyhow--a
preliminary to the grand performance that is to come later. Poor old
_Mary Ellen_, we'll soon see the last of her, I expect."
"Burr-r-r!" exclaimed Mr. Sneed as he shifted his helm. "Don't talk that
way. It sounds rather prophetic, you know, seeing the last of the ship,
and all that, you know."
"Well, I meant that they're going to sink her. You knew that, didn't
you?"
"Oh, yes, worse luck! I'm to be one of the last to jump over the side, I
believe. I don't like it."
"Well, it won't be for long," Russ said. "It will be all over in a few
minutes--I mean the shipwreck proper, though there'll be a lot of
rescue scenes, and then the castaways on an island, and all that sort of
thing. Put me over a little more to the left, Pepper. I can get a fine
view that way, with the light shining on the passengers at the rail."
He clicked away at the camera crank, and then exclaimed:
"No, no! I said to the left. You're putting me to the right."
"Oh, so I am. I was watching that storm. I don't like the looks of
things, Russ. I believe we're going to be in for it sooner than they
thought."
"It does look as though it were going to burst," Russ agreed, as he
looked up from the "finder" of his machine long enough to take a glimpse
at the weather. "Mr. Pertell said he'd signal us with a flag when he
thought we had enough, but I don't see anything of a signal, do you?"
"No," answered the gloomy actor, who had not been needed in the present
scenes. "And I wish I _could_ see it. It's getting too rough out here
for me, even if we have a good boat," and he adjusted the gasoline feed
to give a little more power to the engine.
"Well, it's getting almost too dark to get any more pictures, anyhow,"
Russ declared. "We sure are in for a blow. It's coming up fast too.
We'd better get back to the ship without waiting for a signal. They may
have hoisted one, that we didn't see."
"That's it, I think!" cried the other. "Say, where is the schooner,
anyhow?"
Russ, who was taking the tripod from his camera looked up quickly.
"Why, can't you see her?" asked the young operator.
"No, and I don't believe you can, either, nor can your camera find her.
She's disappeared!"
"Disappeared? Nonsense!" Russ cried. "It's just that the sea mist has
come up and hidden her. It will blow away in a moment. Say, but it is
getting rough!"
Well might he say that, for he could hardly keep his footing on the
platform where he had stood to make the views. He came down into the
half-covered cabin which formed the forward part of the _Ajax_.
"Well, where is the schooner, if you can see her?" growled Pepper Sneed.
"Steer for her if you can sight her--I can't!"
He seemed morose and angry. Perhaps it was just fear. Russ did not stop
to determine that point. The operator took the steering wheel, first
standing up to get an idea of his course.
"Say, it _is_ getting dark!" he cried. "Well, we'll have to go it blind.
We'll pick up the schooner in a minute or two, I expect. She ought to be
right over there," and he pointed.
"Where?" asked Mr. Sneed.
"There," said Russ again.
"Humph! You're away off!" declared his companion. "The last I saw her,
and I was headed right for her, she was over there," and he indicated a
direction differing from that Russ had shown by at least forty-five
degrees.
"I wish they'd show a light!" Russ murmured as he tried to peer through
the mist and the gathering darkness. "Why don't they show a light? We
could see that!"
"Maybe they don't know we're lost," suggested Pepper Sneed.
"Lost!" cried Russ. "We're not lost! We'll be up to them in a minute or
so, but I do wish they'd show a light."
The motorboat _Ajax_ was chugging over the heaving water at good speed,
but as far as the eyes of either of her occupants could see, she might
have been driving straight into the utter desolation of a vast ocean,
for not an object was in sight.
The wind had again taken up that nerve-racking moaning and groaning
sound, as of an unseen giant in distress, and the spray from the crests
of the waves blew in the faces of the two young men, as they crouched
down behind the shelter of the half-cabin.
It seemed as though the storm had begun, had halted in its purpose, or
had gone off momentarily in some other direction, and was now headed
back, to sweep destruction down on those aboard the _Mary Ellen_, and
the two in the motorboat.
But where was the _Mary Ellen_?
That was a question Russ and Mr. Sneed asked of themselves over and over
again as they drove into the very teeth of the storm. They had to head
into it, as in the small boat no other course would have been safe.
Fortunately the _Ajax_ was built dory-fashion, with high bow and stern,
after the pattern of the skiffs in which the fishermen of the New
Foundland banks go out in heavy weather.
"What are you going to do?" asked Mr. Sneed, as Russ increased the speed
of the engine, so that the small craft fairly tore up the inclined hills
of green waters, which the waves represented, and slid down them with
sickening speed on the other slope.
"I'm going to keep on until I find her--find the schooner," Russ said,
grimly. "That's all we can do. But I can't understand why they don't
show a light."
"Maybe they're having troubles of their own," suggested the actor.
"Well, they could shout, so as to let us know where to steer," Russ went
on, rather provoked.
"We could do that ourselves," Pepper Sneed said.
"Do what?" asked Russ, hardly conscious of what he was saying, for just
then a heavy wave threatened to swamp the dory, and it required skillful
handling to keep her from being swamped.
"We could yell," suggested Mr. Sneed. "Come on, give 'em a call!"
Russ agreed to this, and, standing up, so their voices would carry
better, and bracing themselves against the tumbling, swaying motion of
the craft, they sent out a cry for aid--and yet not so much a cry for
aid, as they were not yet in distress, but a cry for direction.
"If I could only see where to steer," Russ exclaimed, when they had
paused in their yelling, well-nigh exhausted, "it wouldn't be so bad!
But I can't see a thing. It's getting darker every minute. I never saw
such a funny storm."
"It's coming up all right," declared the actor. "Going to blow great
guns soon."
"It's blowing them now," said Russ, grimly, as he clung to the wheel.
"I can hardly keep her on the course."
"What's the use of steering a course when you don't know whether it's
right or not?" asked the actor.
"Well, I'm not going to give up," Russ said, grimly. "I think I'm headed
for the schooner, though I ought to have fetched her sooner than this,
at the speed we're going."
"Perhaps she's blowing away from us," suggested Mr. Sneed.
"That's it!" Russ cried. "Why didn't I think of that before? She's
running away from us. She can't help it, though, for she must scud
before this storm. We've got to increase our speed to catch up to her.
The wind and our engine ought to be more than a match for her sails
alone. I'll put on more speed."
The wind was now a howling gale.
Suddenly, as they drove on, the motor seemed to increase its speed.
"What's that?" asked Mr. Sneed. "I thought you had her running at her
limit."
"So did I," Russ answered, bending over the machinery. Then he cried:
"She's racing! We've lost our propeller! We're disabled in this storm!"