CHAPTER XII

TROUBLED WATERS

Each succeeding wave was likely to slop over the gunwale and add to the cargo of salt water already shipped by the dory. She was squattering down like a wounded duck, and seemingly quite as helpless.

Degger was able only to cling to the steering oar, and that was a most futile thing to do. Lorna seized the bailer and threw the water out as fast as she could. But one person could not bail as fast as the sea came inboard.

The _Fenique_, meeting the cross-seas as Ralph Endicott steered her down upon the wallowing dory, rolled enormously, but her owner knew the craft's seaworthiness. Her water-tight compartments, bow and stern, would keep her afloat even if the cockpit filled and she became quite unmanageable.

The dory was fairly water-logged. That indeed was the salvation for the moment of her two passengers. The dory would not turn turtle while it swam so low in the sea.

Lorna was at last thoroughly frightened. It was not that she had never been in equal peril. Once, when they were half-grown, she and Ralph had been swept out to sea in a never-to-be-forgotten tempest, and had taken refuge upon the Quail Shoal lightship. That was an occasion to be remembered in very truth!

But the girl had not experienced at that time this terrible sinking feeling of helplessness that she now endured. It was born in her mind that it had been her perfect trust in Ralph Endicott that had buoyed her up on those other occasions when they were in peril together. She felt her own helplessness at the present time, and in Conny Degger's face she marked nothing but an equal fear. Degger possessed none of Ralph's initiative nor any degree of his cool courage.

She was face to face with death. She could not swim to the shore in such a sea as this. Indeed, no swimmer could live in it. If Ralph in his motor-boat did not overtake them soon, Lorna believed there was little hope for Degger and herself.

She continued to bail desperately. The water in the boat rose against her breast and almost choked her. The chill of it made her gasp. Dimly she saw Degger struggling with the oar. She looked away at the plunging _Fenique_ with Ralph standing amidships and clinging to the wheel.

"Ralph! Oh, Ralph!" she cried aloud.

The words were driven back into her throat by the gale. Degger's wildly glaring eyes betrayed his complete panic. His very soul had turned to water. It was mere muscular reaction--like that of a dead man--that caused him to cling to the oar. He was positively transfixed with terror.

The motor-boat plunged awkwardly toward the water-logged dory. Its bow seemed aimed to ram the smaller craft amidships. The girl stopped bailing.

If the motor-boat plunged upon them, what could save the two in the dory? Lorna stretched her arms out to Ralph, Conny Degger released the oar, ashen-faced and trembling.

Ralph's voice (how full and unshaken it seemed!) came down the wind to them:

"Stand by to grab the rail! Look out for yourself, Degger!"

He threw the steering wheel over and lashed the spokes to hold it steady. As the _Fenique's_ bow swerved off from the floundering dory, Ralph sprang upon the roof of the cabin and flung himself along its slippery surface to reach Lorna's out-stretched hands.

"Hold hard, Lorna!" he shouted.

The motor-boat slid past the dory. Ralph fairly snatched the girl out of it.

Astern he heard an awful cry. Hugging Lorna tightly in the embrace of his right arm, Ralph looked back.

Conny Degger had missed the _Fenique's_ rail, but he had gripped the bight of a rope trailing overboard. He was being towed in the sea; dragged through the bursting waves rather than over them. His precarious situation was not to be derided.

A curling sea toppled over their heads and fell, a smashing weight, upon the _Fenique_. The motor-boat staggered under the impact of the blow. The cockpit was awash as Ralph stumbled down into it with Lorna in his arms.

The girl struggled out of his grasp. She seized the rail, gripping it with both hands.

"Conny! Save him!" she shrieked.

At this juncture her anxiety for Degger seemed to mark a deeper interest than Ralph had suspected she felt for the man.

But Ralph had first their ultimate safety to think of. He leaped for the wheel and relieved the strain under which the _Fenique_ labored. He payed off carefully until the motor-boat began to ride the billows more buoyantly.

When he stoppered the wheel again and turned to aid Degger, Lorna was creeping aft with the evident intent of laying hold of the rope to which the man clung. But she did not possess the strength to drag him inboard.

Ralph set her aside with a fending arm and seized the rope. With a long haul and a heave, he brought the gasping Degger under the rail of the motor-boat.

As the craft rolled, Ralph leaned over the rail and seized the half drowned Degger just as the latter's grip slipped from the rope. While the rail dipped to the running sea the rescuer heaved him in-board.

Then Ralph leaped back to the wheel and righted the motor-boat again. When she was once more headed right, flying ahead of the blast, he glanced over his shoulder. Lorna was on her knees in the bottom of the boat with Conny Degger's head in her lap. The tableau was somewhat startling.

Of course, if she really cared for the fellow----

Then what Tobias Bassett had said about its being necessary for Lorna to marry a wealthy man flashed into Ralph's mind. Degger certainly was not wealthy. Ralph had reason to know this to be a fact.

If the Nicholets were in financial straits and looked to Lorna to make a moneyed marriage, the girl had picked the wrong partner in her match-making.

Ralph did not feel any scorn for Lorna in this supposition. He only pitied her. Determined as she was not to marry Ralph, Endicott knew she must be forced by family pressure to accept the next best marriageable possibility. But he was sure Lorna was misinformed regarding Degger.

Of course, the latter believed the Nicholets to be wealthy. He was, Ralph was confident, nothing more nor less than a fortune hunter. That his old friend and this Degger were mutually mistaken in each other's financial affairs was not a situation from which Ralph could extract any amusement. Not at all! He hated to see Lorna waste any of her thought--perhaps a measure of her confidence--upon such a character as Degger.

"She has gone through the wood and picked up a crooked stick, after all," Ralph reflected, while maneuvering the motor-boat. "I didn't think she was such a little fool!"

There was some bitterness in this expression of his thought. Although he had no wish to marry Lorna (or so he almost hourly told himself) Ralph Endicott felt a certain proprietorship in the girl because of their years of intimacy. Had she been his sister he believed he would have felt the same.

When Degger learned that Lorna would have no dowry, he would leave her flat. He was not a fellow to really fall in love with any girl. He was too much in love with himself, was Conny Degger.

Ralph looked around again. The man was recovering, and Lorna had drawn away from him. She was saturated as well as Degger, and Ralph saw now that she shook with the cold.

"Come here, Lorna, and hold the wheel. Just as she is. There! I'll get you something to put on."

Ralph drew out his keys and unlocked the cabin door. He found a heavy pilot-cloth coat and made the girl put it on.

"If Degger wants anything let him look around for it," Ralph said, not altogether graciously.

Lorna flashed him an inquiring glance from under her wet curls. Was it possible that he was showing jealousy of Conny Degger? In spite of their perilous position, she was amused by this suggestion.

That they were by no means out of danger was evident. The sea was running high, the wind still blew, and driving rain flattened the tops of the waves and beat upon the voyagers on the _Fenique_ most viciously.

The motor-boat was still running before the gale. Seaworthy as she was, Ralph did not dare put back for the harbor's mouth. Lower Trillion was the nearest port they could hope to make in safety.

It was too stuffy and uncomfortable in the low cabin to attract the girl. Besides, one felt safer outside with the seas running as they were.

She looked at Conny Degger's face again. Its expression declared so plainly his panic that she turned her gaze away quickly. Never again, Lorna told herself, would she be able to look at that young man without remembering his cowardice.

Ralph however did not understand this. He had mistaken the natural pity the girl showed Degger for a much more tender feeling.

Endicott had no suspicion that Lorna had been playing Degger all the time for the express purpose of making Ralph himself feel slighted. It wickedly delighted the girl to feel that she was making her old chum jealous.

This possibility Ralph would not have admitted in any case. Professor Henry Endicott and the other members of his family were constantly hinting at a contract between Ralph and Lorna. Of late more than a little had been said to him regarding the girl's association with this Degger. Why did Ralph not put a stop to it, they inquired.

Although he denied to himself that he felt any jealousy, he had begun to believe that it was his duty to separate Conny and Lorna. He was not so lacking in humane instincts as to wish that Conny had lost his grip on the rope when he was overboard so that the difficulty would have been quite satisfactorily settled; and yet the thought flashed into his mind.

As Ralph conned the course of the plunging _Fenique_ he likewise conned the problem of how to get rid of Conway Degger without inspiring in Lorna's breast a greater liking for the fellow than he believed she already sustained.

They raised the Lower Trillion life-saving station and drove on for the mouth of the harbor. A can buoy marked the channel and a deep-mouthed bell in a bracket on the end of the stone pier tolled intermittently. Ralph skilfully steered into the calm pool behind this breakwater.

"Some traveling," he observed, when he had shut off the engine and looked at his watch. "Forty-five minutes from the light. The old tub never made better time, even in a flat calm."

"Are we safe at last?" gasped Degger, sitting up.

"Just as safe as though you were at home and in bed," rejoined Ralph rather bruskly.

"What shall I do?" Lorna asked. "I look a fright."

"Why, Miss Lorna," Conny said, quickly regaining his spirits, "you'll have time enough to dry your things in the cabin. We'll be here for hours, I suppose."

"_We_ may," Ralph said quickly. "But Lorna can go home by land. I'll find somebody with a flivver to take her up to Clay Head."

"Oh!" exclaimed Degger. "Then I guess I'll go with her."

"Guess again," Ralph rejoined. "I need you."

"What's that?" ejaculated the other.

"We'll start back in the _Fenique_ just as soon as the wind hauls off a little. She's fluttering now."

"Do you think for one moment that I would risk my life outside in this dinky little craft again unless it is calm? I guess all these motor-boats are alike--as unsafe as they can be!"

"Oh, I'll not start back for the light until all danger is over," Ralph told him quietly. "The clouds are breaking. In a couple of hours it may be all right. And we must pick up Tobias's dory and tow it in."

"Of course!" Lorna said cheerfully. "I had forgotten that."

"Say!" exclaimed Degger loudly, "the skipper's dory can drift to the Bahamas and back again, as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't trust myself outside again to-day----"

"Then who will pay Tobias for his boat?" demanded Ralph sharply.

Lorna had been about to suggest this very point--although more diplomatically--when Ralph blurted out his question. The scorn expressed on his face and the fire in his eyes stirred her to some defense of Degger's selfishness.

"Of course _I_ will pay Mr. Bassett," she said decisively. "It is my fault that we lost the dory. I asked Conny to take me out in it. I will pay Mr. Bassett if it is lost."

"It isn't going to be lost if I can help it," growled Ralph. "You can't sink one of those dories very easily. I believe I can find it, if we go back before night. Tobias is fond of that boat, too."

"Well, find it, if you are so set on doing so," snarled Degger. "I refuse to risk my life."

"You are a lot keener on saving your life than anybody else, I imagine," Ralph rejoined scornfully. "I shall need somebody to help when I catch the dory, and you're elected."

"You can't bully me, Endicott!" cried the other. "I don't like your manner, anyway."

"That makes me sad," drawled Ralph. "I'm going to weep over that--when I find time. But we'll have a try for Tobias's dory first."

"I won't go with you. You can't make me. I will accompany Miss Lorna."

"We'll see about that," was Ralph's rejoinder. He turned to the girl.

"I'll signal the station. Perhaps Zeke Bassett can get off, and he will take you up in his car. He can find a boat to take you ashore. I don't want to beach the _Fenique_."

"That's all right, Endicott. You need not bother about Miss Lorna," put in Degger. "I'll attend to her transportation to Twin Rocks."

Lorna had hesitated to speak while the young men quarreled. Slowly however her expression of countenance had hardened. She turned from Degger and asked Ralph abruptly:

"Do you really think you can find the dory? Will it be afloat so long?"

"Oh, yes. Hard work to sink one of those boats. With somebody to help me I'm almost sure to recover it."

"You needn't look to me to help you," sneered Degger.

"I'll go back with you," Lorna said quickly. "I can manage the _Fenique_ while you fish for the dory."

"Miss Lorna! You won't think of such a thing!" Degger cried.

She ignored him.

"I'll go below and light a fire, Ralph. My things will be dry in an hour. You put on this coat, or you'll catch cold," and she slipped out of the pilot-coat.

"Not me," said Ralph easily. "Let Degger put it on. He'll be cold riding up to the light in that open car of Zeke's."

Lorna dropped the coat on the bench and without looking again at Degger opened the cabin door and slipped below. Degger's face displayed his chagrin. Ralph chuckled audibly, turned his back on the fellow, too, and shouted shoreward.

The coming of the _Fenique_ had been marked by the lookout in the cupola of the life-saving station, and the very member of the crew of whom Ralph had spoken, Zeke Bassett, now appeared upon the sands.

"Got your car handy, Mr. Bassett?" called Ralph. "Got a passenger for you to take to the Twin Rocks Light--and beyond."

"Sure, I'll take him," was Bassett's reply, seeing that Ralph indicated Degger. "Got enough of the briny, has he? I'll come right out in Sam's skiff for him. You had some weather comin' down, didn't you, Mr. Endicott?"

"'Some weather' is right," agreed Ralph. "But she's clearing now, don't you think?"

"Sure," said the surfman. "Them black squalls don't really amount to nothin'--after they are over."

Ralph turned to Degger again. The fellow was recovering a measure of his usual confidence. He put on a somewhat uncertain smile.

"If you all think the trouble is over, I don't know but I might go back with you after all."

"I _do_ know that you won't!" Ralph retorted. "You get into that skiff, Degger, when Bassett comes out for you."

"Say! who are you bullying, I'd like to know?"

"I'm telling you. I did pick you out of the sea, but I don't have to keep you aboard here any longer than I wish to. You'll go ashore now."

"Oh, yes! That is the kind of fellow you are," snarled Degger. "You've had it in for me ever since I borrowed some of your loose change back there at Cambridge. I haven't forgotten it--don't think!"

"I thought you had," was Ralph's mild sarcasm.

That did not even cause Conway Degger to blush. He still spoke heatedly. "I presume you expect me to fall down and worship you for saving my life."

"Not _you_," sighed Ralph. "Gratitude I am sure is not your besetting sin."

"Oh, you're only jealous," sneered the other. "Anybody can see that. And you think you'll have a better time alone with Lorva aboard than you would if I went back to the light with you."

Ralph started for him. Then he halted, holding himself in. If there was a fight here on board the motor-boat Lorna must surely be aware of it. He bent on Conway Degger a look that warned him that he had gone far enough.

"I know just the sort of scamp you are, Degger," he said in a low voice. "I should not have let you hang around as you have. Your rep at college was enough."

"How about your own?" sneered Degger. "There was that Cora Devine--how about _her_?"

"Well, how about her?" rejoined Ralph, with unmoved countenance.

"You try to interfere in my affairs," Degger said furiously, "and somebody will hear all about that Devine girl--believe me!"

"I don't just get you, Degger," Ralph returned calmly. "But if for no other reason, that threat would make me promise to interfere--and to some purpose."

"You----"

"Listen!" commanded Ralph, with a gesture that silenced the oath on Degger's lips. "When Zeke Bassett takes you as far as the Twin Rocks Light, you pack your grip and go on with him to Clinkerport. I don't care how far you travel beyond Clinkerport. But if you are still at the Light when I get back there, I'll thrash you out of your skin! Believe me, Degger, I mean it. I hope you will be unwise enough to wait for me at the Light. You'll be glad enough to go after I give you what you are suffering for."

He turned to catch the loop of the painter Bassett tossed him, and drew the skiff alongside the motorboat. Degger did not even hesitate. He stepped down into the small boat, shaking with the cold, if not with fear. He scorned Ralph's pilot-coat. The surfman grinned up at Ralph, nodded, and pulled back to the strand.

Ralph Endicott had taken the bit in his teeth. He was determined to run certain matters his way from this time on!