CHAPTER XII

ALMOST RUN DOWN

With vigorous motions Jerry sent the flywheel spinning around. It went fast enough, but there was no answering chug-chug. He adjusted the spark and gasolene levers a few notches forward and tried again, but without results.

“Maybe the gasolene is out,” suggested Bob.

“There was plenty a while ago,” answered Jerry.

Still, he was aware that sometimes a tank will spring a leak most unexpectedly. He tried the reservoir, and found there was enough of the liquid to last a long time. He was sure then the trouble must be in the motor.

In quick succession Jerry tried all the means known to him of locating the difficulty. He knew it must be something slight, as there was good compression. Then he tried the batteries and they gave a “fat” green spark. Clearly there was electricity enough.

“I say,” called back Sam, “got to do something pretty soon. We’re losing steerage way, and we’ll be in the trough in a few minutes.”

With Ned and Bob to help and offer suggestions, Jerry went all over the engine to locate the trouble. It might be in one of a dozen places, for a gasolene motor is a delicate machine and can get more kinds of things the matter with it than can a baby.

“How about the carburettor?” asked Bob, referring to the apparatus where the gasolene is mixed with air so it will explode in the cylinders.

“I don’t want to monkey with that,” Jerry replied. “It never has given any trouble, and I’m afraid to take it apart now.”

Just then the _Dartaway_ gave a violent lurch to one side, and the boys, who were stooping down, were nearly thrown off their balance.

“Did we hit something?” called Jerry.

“No, a wave hit us,” Sam replied. “Can’t you get the engine fixed?”

“Doesn’t seem so.”

“Then I’ve got to do something. She won’t answer the rudder any more, and is getting down in the hollows.”

“What can you do?”

“I’ll show you. I haven’t been to sea forty years for nothing, sonny. I’ll do the same thing I did when I was shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean once, and had to live three days on a raft.”

Sam did not waste any more time in words. He came from the bow, since it was no longer any use to try to steer the _Dartaway_, and made his way astern. With him he brought the tub in which the whale line had been coiled.

“The boat isn’t leaking,” said Bob, thinking the sailor was about to begin bailing operations.

“I know it, you just watch me.”

Sam fastened a piece of rope to each of the two handles of the tub. These strands he tied together, and at the place of joining he attached another rope.

Seeing that all of the knots were secure he climbed out on the overhanging stern of the boat, and made the end of the long rope fast to a cleat. Then he dropped the tub overboard, and it fell with a splash into the water.

“He’s lost it!” cried Bob.

“Not a bit of it,” Sam said. “That’s what I wanted to do. That’s what we call a drag, sonny. It will keep the boat head on to the waves, and that’s the most important thing now.”

In the meanwhile the craft had been pitching and rolling about in rather an alarming fashion. The boys had all they could do to stand upright, but Sam crawled and walked about like the old salt that he was.

No sooner had the tub been dropped astern than an improvement was apparent. The rolling and pitching ceased, and, though it was still rough riding compared to being on a lake or river, the _Dartaway_ stood up well, and was on a more even keel.

“That drag has something of the same effect as if we were moving by means of the engine,” explained Sam. “It keeps the stern in the right place. The wind on the awning gives us a little headway and I think we’ll do very well for a while. Lucky the whale didn’t take the tub with him.”

Now that they were temporarily in a little better shape, Jerry renewed his efforts to get the engine to work. It was anything but an easy task at best. Even in daylight and on still water he had often found his ingenuity taxed to the utmost to discover some slight defect and remedy it. Now, in a boat that had an uneven motion, and amid a darkness that the lights seemed to but increase, it was about as ticklish a proposition as the youth had ever undertaken.

“I’ll go for’ard,” spoke the sailor. “I can’t do anything here, and I’ll be on the lookout.”

The boys tried everything they could bring to mind. They had been in similar trouble before, though not under such serious circumstances.

“I think after all I’ll have to take the carburettor out,” Jerry remarked with something like a sigh, for it was a hard and difficult task.

“I say!” called Sam. “Do you suppose any of the pipes is stopped up?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we had some trouble once, when I was aboard the _Double Dog Fish_, and it was on account of stopped-up pipes.”

“Was that a motor boat?” asked Bob.

“Say, that was before we ever thought of motor boats. It was away back in 1849. It was this way. There was a barrel of molasses aboard, and we used to be allowed to help ourselves. It come in mighty good for sweetening your tea. Well, one day we opened the spigot and none come out. First we thought the cook had shut down on us. Then we thought maybe the molasses had given out. But it wasn’t either one.”

“What was it?” asked Jerry, glad of something to take his mind off the trouble of the engine.

“Why the spigot was stopped up. One of the sailors had dropped his ball of rope yarn, with which he was mending sails, into the barrel one day, and there it was inside plumb up against the spigot.”

“How’d you get it out?” asked Ned.

“I run my hand down in the barrel, rolling up my sleeve of course, and got the ball out. Then the molasses run just the same as before. There was some kicking though, account of me licking the molasses off my arm. The men claimed I got more than my share.”

In spite of their anxiety the boys could not help laughing at the sailor’s story.

“I thought maybe some pipe or other got stopped up, and the molasses or whatever it is you run that engine with, might not be flowing.”

“I never thought of that,” Jerry said. “Wait until I take a look.”

“How can you look in the gasolene tank?” came from Bob.

“Well then, feel, if it suits you better.”

Jerry moved forward and was about to remove the cover from the tank, when a cry from Sam stopped him.

“Here comes a big steamer!” the sailor yelled. “It’s bearing right down on us, and we can’t move out of her course!”

“Blow the whistle!” cried Ned.

Instinctively Jerry pulled the cord. He forgot the engine was not working, and that there was no compressed air to send out a blast. In the midst of his terror, he resolved to have a storage tank installed for air for the whistle if ever they came safely out of their trouble.

“Ship ahoy!” yelled Sam, with lungs that had done their duty in all sorts of weather. “On board the steamer!”

The sailor and Jerry peering between the curtains at the bow, and Ned and Bob, looking forth from the side awnings, saw a big vessel bearing right down on them. They could distinguish the towering bow and the twinkling lights.

“Ship ahoy! You’ll run us down!” hailed Sam.

The boys joined their voices to his, and a chorus of shouts went up. But the wind had freshened and was blowing quite strongly. Even had the night been still it is doubtful if the pilot could have heard, shut up in the bridge house.

As for the lookout aloft, he was too far up, and the wind, doubtless, made such a noise through the rigging that it would have taken a megaphone to have aroused him.

“Veer off! Veer off!” shouted the sailor.

“Can’t they see our lights!” cried Jerry. “Oh, if only the search light was going!”

“We’re too low down, lad. I’m afraid we’re done for. If we could only forge ahead a bit! If the engine was only running!”

It seemed there was no escape. Nearer and nearer came the big ship. It seemed like a monster about to crush the little boat in its path. Once it struck it there would be nothing left of the _Dartaway_, and the shock to the steamer would be so slight those on board would never notice it.

“If I only had a horn, or something to make a louder noise with!” said Sam, with something like a groan.

“A noise!” almost yelled Bob. “Quick, Jerry! The cannon!”

Jerry made a jump for the brass ordnance. He seized the string. There was a charge in the cannon, put there the day after the races. The boy yanked the lanyard.

Bang!

An explosion roared through the night and echoed over the dark waters.