WHEN THE ENGINE FAILED.

Joe Hartley’s mind, while not as active as Nat’s, worked quickly, and he sensed instantly a connection between the presence in the engine room of Sartorius and the stoppage of the motor. And this, although he could not imagine what possible purpose the man could have in such actions. Sartorius had tiptoed back into the cabin, where lay Mr. Jenkins, without casting a glance behind him. Joe crept forward with the same caution till he gained a point of vantage from which he could see into the lighted cabin.

Lounging back in a swivel chair with a magazine in his hand and a cigar in his mouth was the black-bearded doctor. On his face was a look of content and repose. Apparently he was utterly oblivious to the wild tossing of the Nomad in the rough sea, and had not Joe been certain that it was their more or less unwelcome guest whom he had seen sneak out of the engine room, he would have been inclined to doubt his own eyesight.

Ding-dong’s sudden reappearance chased these thoughts swiftly out of his mind.

“Where on earth have you been?” he demanded, staring open-mouthed at Ding-dong as if he had been a ghost.

“Wer-wer-what’s happened to the engines?” sputtered Ding-dong anxiously.

Joe drew him aside.

“I came down here the instant they stopped,” he said. “I caught our black-whiskered friend sneaking out of the engine room into the cabin with a monkey wrench in his hand. I’m sure he tampered with the engine.”

“Phew! That’s rer-er-right in line with what I went on deck to tell Nat about.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just this. Happening to pe-pe-peek into the c-c-c-cabin a while back, I sus-sus-saw Wer-Wer-Whiskers kneeling in front of one of Jer-Jer-Jenkins’ trunks. He couldn’t get it open, and then I saw him tip-toe over to Jer-Jenkins and start to go through his pockets. I ber-ber-beat it up on deck to tell Nat.”

“Then you must have been going up the port companionway while I was coming down the starboard, and that’s how we missed running into each other.”

“Ther-ther-that’s about it.”

“What did Nat say?”

“To ger-ger-get the engines going and not mind anything else just now.”

“That’s right; we’re in a bad fix. I’ll stay down here and help you go over the motor. I can be of more use down here than up on deck.”

While the Nomad took sickening swings and plunges, at times rolling over on her beam ends, the two lads went over the motor painstakingly. It was no light task in that turmoil and fury of wind and wave. Every once in a while, when the little craft took an exceptionally bad plunge, they exchanged glances which plainly said:

“Are we going to get out of this alive?”

Once in a while Joe stole away to take a look at the doctor, whom he suspected of tampering with the motor. Each time he discovered no difference in the man’s strange repose. He might have been taking his ease on a Pullman drawing-room car instead of being on board a craft with which the elements were playing battledore and shuttlecock, for all the signs he showed of uneasiness. Joe did notice, though, that from time to time he cast glances from the magazine in which he appeared so much interested toward the lounge on which lay extended Mr. Jenkins’ senseless form.

It was on his return from one of these excursions that Joe was hailed by Ding-dong in an excited voice. Above the racket of the storm and the shouting of the voice of the wind there was not much danger of their being heard in the cabin.

“Lul-lul-look here, Joe; the pur-pur-precious rascal!”

The young engineer pointed to the carburetor of the two forward cylinders.

“What’s the matter with them?”

“The auk-auk-auk-auxiliary air valves have been tampered with, that’s what, and lul-lul-look on the stern cylinders; the spark plugs have been tightened on till the porcelain cracked. No wonder she went out of business.”

“Crackers! The fellow who did that was no greenhorn round an engine.”

“Well, I gug-guess not. Just watch me get busy. We’ll attend to his nu-nu-nibs later on.”

Joe got fresh spark plugs from the locker where the extra parts were kept, and, while Ding-dong fitted them, he started adjusting the carburetor which had been so skillfully tampered with. They were in the midst of this work when the tall form of Dr. Sartorius appeared in the doorway between the cabin and the engine room.

“What is the matter? What has happened?” he asked, as if noticing for the first time the stoppage of the engines.

“The motor stopped, that’s all,” spoke up Joe sarcastically.

“Dear me, in this storm that might have been serious,” said the doctor, holding on to the casement of the doorway to steady himself.

“I guess the fellow that did it didn’t know that we might all have gone to the bottom, or maybe he’d have thought a second time,” sputtered Joe, red-hot with indignation and not caring a snap if he showed it. He stared straight at the other as he spoke, and he could have sworn that under his steady, accusing gaze the doctor paled and averted his eyes.

“But you have it fixed now?” inquired the doctor after a second, ignoring Joe’s peppery remark.

“Oh, yes, we’ve got it fixed all right, and we’ll take precious good care it doesn’t get out of order again for any cause,” exploded Joe; “and another thing, doctor, we boys regard this engine room as private property. Will you please retire to the cabin?”

With a shrug of his shoulders, the doctor turned, and Joe shut and locked the door behind him.

“We’ll have no more meddling on board here,” he muttered.

In a few minutes Ding-dong announced that all was ready to try the motor once more. Joe switched on the electric self-starting appliance and the cylinders began to cough and chug welcomely. But it took some time longer to get them properly adjusted. At last the task was completed, however, and once more the Nomad was able to battle for life. No longer a helpless plaything of the giant rollers, she fought them gallantly, with her heart beating strong and true again.

Joe brewed coffee and got cold meat and bread from a locker, and the boys took turns relieving each other at wheel and engine. In the driving spume and under the dark clouds that went whistling by above their heads it was impossible to see more than a few yards before them. They had not the slightest idea how far they might be off the coast.

In the middle of all this anxiety and turmoil, Joe got the fright of his life. He was on the bridge, holding the Nomad to her course as well as he could—considering the drift she had made when the motor was idle—when, out of the storm, terror, real and thrilling, swept down upon him. Above the crest of a big wave there suddenly appeared the wallowing hull of another motor boat! She was smaller than the Nomad and was making dangerously bad weather of it.

Joe had hardly time to see the other craft before she was flung toward the Nomad like a stone out of a catapult. Joe spun the spokes of the Nomad’s wheel furiously, but with her rudder clear out of the water half the time the motor craft did not respond as obediently to her wheel as usual.

“Look out! You’ll run us down!” bawled Joe to a figure he saw crouching behind the cabin of the other boat.

“Our engine’s broken down!” came the answer, flung toward the young helmsman by the wind. “Help us!”

Above the bulwarks of the other boat, as the two small craft swept by in the storm rack within a few inches of each other, appeared two other heads. Joe caught their shouts for aid and frantically rang the signal bell to summon the others on deck. Nat and Ding-dong came tumbling up to ascertain what fresh accident had happened. They arrived just in time to see the other motor boat, a white-painted, dainty-looking craft, swept onward amid the towering seas.

“They’ve broken down—need help—what can we do?” bawled Joe into Nat’s ear.

The leader of the Motor Rangers looked troubled. The other craft was by this time wind-driven some distance from them. To try to overtake her would be a most risky maneuver. Nat saw in his first glance at the other boat that she was not fitted at all for outside work. She was evidently a mere pleasure craft which had probably been overtaken unexpectedly by the northwester before she had had time to make port.

It was a trying dilemma that faced those on the Nomad. Below, they had what was in all probability a dying man. At any rate, his life depended upon the speed with which they could make port. On the other hand, three human beings equally doomed to destruction, if help did not speedily reach them, had just been driven by, the helpless victims of the storm.

Nat and his chums found themselves facing a question which comes to few men, and assuredly to still fewer lads of their ages. As usual, the others looked to Nat for a decision. But it was longer than usual in coming. Young Trevor felt to the full the heavy responsibility that lay upon him in this crisis. If he took after the storm-wracked pleasure craft with its human cargo, he was running a grave risk of losing all their lives without saving the others. On the other hand, the appeal for help from the powerless victims of the storm had struck a chord in Nat’s heart which was never unresponsive. In the course of their adventurous careers the Motor Rangers had aided and benefited many a human being, but never before had they encountered any in such urgent need of succor as those who had just flung their prayer for aid broadcast on the wings of the wind.

“Well, what’s the decision?” shouted Joe, as the three lads stood side by side on the wildly swaying bridge.

“To put her about. We’ll go after them,” was Nat’s response, as with firm hands on the wheel he swung the Nomad full into the teeth of the gale.