CHAPTER XXIII--ONLY HOPE

The condition of the _Marigold_ was actually much more serious than the Roselawn girls at first supposed. Jessie and Amy were so busy in the radio house for a couple of hours and were so interested in what they were doing that they failed to observe that the hull of the yacht was slowly sinking.

Fortunately the wind decreased after a while; but by that time it was scarcely safe to head the yacht into the wind's eye, as the skipper called it. She wallowed in the big seas in a most unpleasant way and it was fortunate indeed that all the passengers were good sailors.

Nell came and looked into the radio room once or twice; then she felt so bad that she went below to lie down. The doctor worked as hard as any man aboard. And his cheerfulness was always infectious.

The minister knew that they were in peril. He would have been glad to see a rescuing vessel heave into sight. But he gave no sign that he considered the situation at all uncertain or perilous in the least.

The afternoon was passing. Another night on the open sea without knowing if the yacht would weather the conditions, was a matter for grave consideration. The doctor and Darry conferred with Skipper Pandrick.

"'Tis hard to say," the sailing master observed. "There is no knowing what may happen. If the yacht was not so water-logged we might get in under our own steam----"

"But we can't make steam enough!" cried Darry.

"Well, no, we don't seem to," admitted the skipper.

"And to what port would you sail?" asked Dr. Stanley.

"Well, now, there's not any handy just now, I admit. If we head back for the land we may be thrown on our beam-ends, I will say. The waves are big ones, as you see."

"You are not very encouraging, Skipper," said the minister.

"I wouldn't be raising any false hopes in your mind, sir," said Pandrick.

"You're a jolly old wet blanket, you are," declared Darry to the sailing master. "What shall we do?"

"We'll have to take what comes to us," declared the skipper.

"You are a fatalist, Mr. Pandrick," said the minister, and Darry was glad to hear him laugh cheerily.

"No, sir. I'm a Universalist," declared the seaman. "And I've all the hope in the world that we'll come out of this all right."

"But can't we do something to help ourselves?" demanded the exasperated Darry.

"Not much that I know of. Here's hoping the wind goes down and we have calm weather and see the sun again."

"Hope all you like," growled the young fellow. "I am going to see if the girls aren't able to bring something to pass with that radio."

He found his sister and Jessie rearranging a part of the circuit on the set-board. They were very much in earnest. Thus far, however, they had been unable to get a clear signal out of the air, nor could they send one.

"If we could reach another vessel, or a shore station, and tell them where the yacht is and that she is leaking, we'd be all right, shouldn't we, Darry?" Jessie asked earnestly.

"But I am not at all sure we need help," he said, in doubt.

"We may need it!" exclaimed his sister.

"Why--yes, we may," he admitted, though rather grudgingly.

"Then we want to get this fixed," Jessie declared. "But there is something wrong here. Do you see this Darry? It seems to me that there must be a part missing. When you and Burd set this up are you sure you followed the instructions of the book in every particular?"

"Of course we did," Darry said.

"Of course we didn't!" exclaimed Burd's voice from the doorway.

"What are you saying?" demanded his friend, promptly.

"What I know. Don't you remember that you lost the instruction book overboard sometime there, when we were getting the bothersome thing fixed?"

"So I did," confessed Darry. "But, say! she was all right then."

"She hasn't ever been all right," accused his chum, "and you know it."

"We sent code signals by the old machine, all right."

"But we've never been able to since we linked it up with this receiving set, and you know it," said Burd.

"It sounds to me," said Amy, "as though neither one of you boys knew so awfully much about it."

"I know one thing," said Jessie, with determination. "All the parts are not here. These connections are not like any I ever saw before. It is a mystery to me----"

"Hold on!" exclaimed Darry Drew suddenly. "What did we do with all those little cardboard boxes and paper tubes the parts came in? Couldn't be we overlooked anything, Burd?"

"Don't try to hang it on me!" exclaimed his chum. "I never claimed to know a thing about radio. You were the Big Noise when we put the contraption together."

"Aw, you! Where did we put the things left over?"

"There he goes!" exclaimed the confirmed joker. "He's like the fellow who took the automobile apart to fix it and had a bushel of parts left over when he was done. He doesn't know----"

"Beat it out of here," roared Darry, "and find that box we put the stuff into. _You_ know."

Dr. Stanley came up to the radio room while Burd was searching for the rubbish box. The clergyman spoke cheerfully, but he looked very grave.

"Is there any likelihood of our being able to send out a call for assistance, Jessie?" he asked, quietly.

"I don't see how we can, Doctor Stanley, until we fix this radio set. We can't get any spark. We have to be able to get a spark to send a message. The message will be stumbling enough, I am afraid, even if we fix the thing, for none of us understands Morse very well. Unless Darry----"

"Don't look to me for help," declared the collegian. "I haven't sent a message since we put the yacht in commission. We had a fellow aboard here until the other day who knew something about wireless and he was the operator. Not me."

"Amy and I have a code book with the alphabet in it," said Jessie slowly. "I think if somebody read the dots and dashes to me I could send a short message. But there is something wrong with this circuit."

Just then Burd Alling came back. He brought with him a big corrugated cardboard container. In that the various parts of the radio outfit had been packed.

"What do you think about it?" he asked. "There _is_ something here that I never saw before. See this jigamarig, Jess? Think it belongs on the contraption?"

"Oh!" cried Jessie, eagerly, pouncing on the small object that Burd held out to her. "I know what that is."

"Then you beat me. I don't," declared Burd.

"Let's see what else there is," said Darry, diving into the box. "I left you to get out the parts, Burd; you know I did."

"Oh, splash!" exclaimed his friend. "We might as well admit that we don't know as much about radio as these girls. They leave us lashed to the post."

But Jessie and Amy did not even feel what at another time Amy would have called "augmented ego." The occasion was too serious.

The day was passing into evening, and a very solemn evening it was. The wind whined through the strands of the wire rigging. The waves knocked the yacht about. The passengers all felt weary and forlorn.

The two girl chums felt the situation less acutely than anybody else, perhaps, because they were so busy. That radio had to be repaired. That is what Jessie told Amy, and Amy agreed. The safety of the whole yacht's company seemed dependent upon what the two radio girls could do.

"And we must not fall down on it, Jess," Amy said vigorously. "How goes it now?"

"This thing that Burd found goes right in here. We have got to reset a good part of the circuit to do it. I don't see how the boys could have made such a mistake."

"Proves what I have always maintained," declared Amy Drew. "We girls are smarter than those boys, even if the said boys do go to college. Bah! What is college, anyway?"

"Just a prison," said Burd sepulchrally from the doorway.

"Close that door!" exclaimed Jessie. "Don't let that spray drift in here."

"Yes. Do go away, Burd, and see if the yacht is sinking any more. Don't bother us," commanded Amy.

The men were keeping the pumps at work, but it was an anxious time. It was long dark and the lamps were lighted when Jessie pronounced the set complete. Darry and Burd came in again and asked what they could do?

"Root for us. Nothing more," said Amy. "Jessie has fixed this thing and she is going to have the honor of sending the message--if a message can be sent."

"Well," remarked Burd Alling, "I guess it is up to you girls to save the situation. I have just found out that there isn't as much provender as I was given reason to believe when we started. We ought to be in Boston right now. And see where we are!"

"That is exactly what we can't see," said Jessie. "But we must know. Did you get the latitude and longitude from the skipper, Darry?"

"Yes. Here it is, approximately. He got a chance to shoot the sun this noon."

"The cruel thing!" gibed his sister. "But anyway, I hope he has got the situation near enough so some vessel can find us."

"Let us see, first, if we can send a message intelligibly," said Jessie, putting on the head harness, and speaking seriously. "It will be awful, perhaps, if we can't. I know that the yacht is almost unmanageable."

"You've said something," returned Burd. "The fuel is low, as well as the supplies in the galley. We haven't got much left----"

"But hope," said Jessie, softly.