To say the least, Mike Murphy was much disquieted when the engine of the Deerfoot stopped dead and the boat began drifting in the darkness, no one could say whither. Not knowing the right thing to do, he seized hold of the fly-wheel, swung it back and forth and part way round, and then suddenly let go, as he had seen Alvin Landon do many times. Since there was no fuel in the tank, it need not be said that this effort was fruitless.

"Whew!" he exclaimed at last as he straightened up; "if there was somebody here to tell me the right thing to do I'd do the same mighty quick, but this part of my eddycation was niglicted, as me grandmither said when the taicher asked her if she knowed the alphabet.

"I 'spose now that there be lots of handles which if I turned 'em the right way would start this old thing, but if I swung 'em the wrong way—as I'd be sure to do—I'd bust her b'iler. So I'll not try."

He sat down in one of the chairs to think, and his musings ran riot, but the end was always the same: it was utterly beyond his power to help himself out of the dilemma.

"I'll have to drift and drift till morning comes; then if I'm not too fur out on the ocean somebody will pick me up. I'm thinking the same is a good idee to lay low, as me cousin remarked whin he was knocked down. Some boat is likely to run into me 'cause I haven't any lights burning, and as she's going by I'll grab her—whisht! phwat's that?" he asked himself, with a new thrill of alarm.

The sound that had startled him was a distinct jar of the boat. At that moment, it was so dark he could not see beyond the flag at the bow of the launch. Nothing amiss was discerned in that direction, but a second bump caused him to glance to the left, and then he received the answer to his question.

The boat had drifted against a pile of rocks, which come down to the edge of the sea on one of the two little uninhabited masses of sand and stones, known as the White Islands. This was the northern one, opposite Fisherman Island, from which it is separated by more than a mile of the sea.

The sudden discovery rattled Mike for the moment and caused him to do a foolish thing, which he never would have done had he taken a half minute for reflection. His dread was that the boat would be battered to pieces on the rocks. With no thought of his own safety, he sprang from the cockpit, placed one foot on the gunwale and leaped as far as he could, his purpose being to push the craft clear. With all his strength—and he possessed a good deal of it—he barely succeeded. He fell on his face and knees, and had he not clutched desperately and seized a craggy point he would have slipped back into the water.

What he ought to have done, as he recalled the next instant, was to use the pole on the boat to press against the rocks and shove the launch clear. That would have been easy and effective, but it was too late now to think of it.

The reactive force of his body as he leaped drove the boat back perceptibly. Inasmuch as the current had swept it forward in the first place, the action would have been repeated but for a curious condition which quickly showed itself. Had the boat struck farther south, its return after being forced away would have occurred. Had it first drifted farther north it would have cleared the islet altogether, and continued floating toward the lower end of Southport, but it so came about that when the current regained control of the launch and shoved it westward again, it just cleared the northern end of the mass of rocks and was swallowed up in the enshrouding gloom.

Mike Murphy stumbled as near as he could to the Deerfoot and stared out in the darkness. A moment after it disappeared a partial clearing of the clouds in front of the moon brought it dimly into sight again. This lasted but a brief interval when it vanished for good.

"Good-by," called the lad. "I did the best fur ye that I knowed, and now ye must take care of yersilf, which the same has to be done by Mike Murphy."

The youth was a philosopher, and with his rugged health and naturally buoyant spirits he took the rosiest view he could of his situation. It was clear that in more than one respect he was better off on this mass of rocks and sand than in the launch—that is, during the darkness. So long as he was afloat with no lights burning, he was in great danger of being run down by some larger boat. In the event of such a calamity he was liable to be caught in a crush where his life preserver could not save him.

But no such fate could overtake the lad while on the islet. The Mauretania or Lusitania or even the Olympic could not run into that collection of rocks and sand without getting the worst of it.

Now, as has been shown, Mike was really safer where he had landed, for no harm could come to him on White Island, yet his situation was anything but pleasant. He was marooned and could not leave his ocean prison without help. There was little hope of anything of the kind so long as night remained with him, but the morrow ought to bring rescue. Until then he must content himself as best he could.

But he was not the one to sit down with folded hands. Nature had gifted him with a powerful voice and he fancied he might turn it to use. A twinkling light gliding or bobbing over the water here and there showed that not all the world was asleep. His own experience told him he had neighbors. Accordingly he lifted up his voice and shouted with might and main:

"Hilp! hilp! somebody come to me hilp!"

He directed the tones toward different points of the compass, but a half hour passed, during which perforce he often rested, without any sign of success. And then he was thrilled by what resembled a lantern, twinkling from the direction of the Hypocrites to the westward. He renewed his call, and to add force to it, waved his arms and danced up and down on the rock to whose top he had climbed, though of course such antics were of no help.

Fifteen minutes removed all doubt. The light, sinking and falling with the moderate waves, was drawing nearer. Although his voice had grown husky, he spared it not.

"Right this way! Don't be afeard! I won't hurt ye! Hurry up, ye spalpeens!"

A hundred yards or so off—too far for him to see the boat or its occupants—the rowers paused. From out the gloom came the call:

"Hello there! what's the matter?"

"I'm shipwrecked! Come and take me off!"

The words must have sounded suspicious to those for whom they were intended.

"How came you to be cast away?"

"I landed here awhile ago and when I warn't looking me owld boat slipped from me, bad cess to her!"

This was less satisfactory to the two men, who were probably robbing lobster pots. They talked together for a few minutes, though the anxious listener could not hear what they said.

"What boat was it?" asked the one who acted as spokesman.

"The Deerfut—a motor boat that b'longs to me friend Alvin Landon, whose dad owns half the city of New York. He'll give ye a million dollars fur taking care of Mike Murphy, which is mesilf."

This announcement had an altogether different effect from what the youth expected.

"If you're worth that much we'll let some one else earn the money. Good night!"

It was an act of wanton cruelty, but it is a fact none the less that the couple closed their ears to the appeal and rowed away in the darkness. When certain that they were deserting him Mike changed the tenor of his prayer and urged them to come back long enough to receive the chastisement he was aching to give them.

It was a bitter disappointment, but the lad felt he had more cause to be grateful to heaven that he had to repine.

"I may as well make up me mind to stay here a bit, as Jim O'Toole said whin he begun his ten years sintence in jail. The weather is mild, and though it looks like rain I don't think it will come yet awhile. I'll saak me couch and go to sleep."

The danger of bruises from a fall prevented his groping long for shelter. Exposed to the open sea the islet was swept by a gentle breeze which brought the ocean's coolness with it. After much care and patience, he found a place where he was quite well screened. Passing his hands over the rough surface, he said with a touch of his waggishness which seemed never to leave him:

"This is softer than anywhere ilse, as me mother said whin she took her hands out of the dough and laid 'em on me head."

Mike never forgot his prayers, and when he lay down he was in a thankful frame of mind despite the trying experiences through which he had passed. Quite soon he was sleeping as profoundly as if in his bed at home. Such is the reward of good habits and right living.

The night must have been well along when he sank into unconsciousness. That his tired body needed the rest was proved by the fact that he did not open his eyes until half the next day was past. He felt stiff and cramped from lying so long on his hard couch, and it was several minutes before he recalled all the events of the preceding day and night.

Climbing to the top of the highest rock he gazed out over the waters. He felt no concern for the Deerfoot, which had played him the shabby trick, for if he saw it he could expect nothing from it. His most poignant consciousness was that he never was so hungry in his life. He could not recall that he had ever gone without food so long, and his craving gave him more anxiety than did the future.

In whichever direction he turned his gaze he saw small boats, schooners, brigs, steamers and various kinds of vessels, most of them too far off for him to hope to attract their attention. The nearest was a schooner, more than a mile away and gliding northward. It so happened that much the larger number of craft were heading outward. Mike shrewdly reflected:

"If they pick me up they'll niver turn round to take me home, but will speed away to the ither side of the world. I must catch one of 'em that's coming in, so he won't lose time in giving me a lift."

He picked his way to the southern end of the islet, where a broad sweep of water separated him from the other bit of land, and gazed out over the vast Atlantic which swept from horizon to horizon.

"I would display a flag of distriss on the top of a pole, if it warn't fur two raisons. The first is I haven't any pole to erict on these rocks, and the ither is that I'd have to use me own clothes for the flag, which the same would be apt to drive away all hilp."

Mike Murphy cut a strange figure, dancing, shouting, swinging his arms and waving his cap, but sad to say not a solitary person seemed to see him, or else he not did think it worth while to give further attention to the marooned youth.

"It looks loike it will be a failure, as Tim Ryan said whin he tried to throw the prize bull over a stone wall."

Accordingly, Mike returned to the upper end of the islet to learn whether any hope lay in that direction. His growing fear was that he was in danger of starving to death.

"Anither night will doot," he said, despairing for the moment—"PHWAT!"

The first look northward showed him the Deerfoot, speeding past barely a fourth of a mile distant. Had he not spent so much time at the other end of his refuge he would have observed her long before.

He stood for a spell unable to believe the evidence of his senses. Then, when the glorious truth burst upon him, he uttered the words that have already been recorded.