The cable to which this was bent was made fast to a cleat on the lower deck, and as the lad made his way there by an outside stairway he heard some one walking on the deck he had just quitted.

"I guess that's Hank," Neale reasoned.

The boy was pulling at the anchor rope when he heard Hank's voice near him asking:

"What's the matter, Neale?"

"We're either dragging our anchor or the cable's cut," answered the lad.

And then, as the rope came dripping through his hands, offering no resistance to the pull, he realized what had happened. The anchor was gone! It had slipped the cable or been cut loose. Just which did not so much matter now, as did the fact that there was nothing to hold the _Bluebird_ against the fury of the gale.

Realizing this, Neale did not pull the cable up to the end. He had found out what he wanted to know--that the anchor was off it and somewhere on the bottom of the lake. He next turned his attention to the boat.

"We're drifting!" he cried to Hank. "We've got to start the motor, and see if we can head up into the wind. You go to that and I'll take the wheel!"

"All right," agreed the mule driver. "This is some storm!" he added, bending his head to the blast of the wind and the drive of the rain.

It was growing worse every moment, Neale realized. b.u.t.toned as his rubber coat was, the lower part blew open every now and then, drenching his bare legs.

As the boy hurried to the upper deck again to take command of the steering wheel, he heard from within the _Bluebird_ sounds which told him the Corner House girls, their guardian, and Mrs. MacCall were getting up. The voices of Tess and Dot could be heard, excited and somewhat frightened.

"The only real danger," thought Neale to himself, "is that we may hit a rock or something, and stave a hole in us. In that case we'd sink, I guess, and this lake is deep."

But he had not told Ruth that danger. He grasped the spokes of the wheel firmly, and waited for the vibration that would tell him Hank had started the motor. And as he waited he had to face the wind and rain, and listen to the vibrating thunder, the while he was almost blinded by the vivid lightning. It was one of those fierce summer storms, and the temperature took a sudden drop so that Neale was chilled through.

"Why doesn't Hank start that motor?" impatiently thought the lad. "We're drifting fast and that big island must be somewhere in this neighborhood. I wonder how close it is? If we hit that going like this--good-night!"

A vivid flash of light split the darkness like a dagger of flame and revealed the heaving tumultuous lake all about, the waters whipped and lashed into foam by the sudden wind. Storms came up quickly on Lake Macopic, due to the exposed situation of the body of water, and there were often fatalities caused by boats being caught unprepared.

Just as Neale was going to take a chance and hurry below to see what was delaying Hank, there came the vibration of the craft which told that the motor had been started.

"Now we'll get somewhere," cried Neale aloud. "I think I'd better head into the wind and try to make sh.o.r.e. If I can get her under the shelter of that bluff we pa.s.sed this afternoon, it will be the best for all of us."

He swung the wheel around, noting that the _Bluebird_ answered to the helm, and then he dashed the water from his face with a motion of his head, shaking back his hair. As the craft gathered speed a figure came up the stairs and emerged on deck. It fought its way across the deck to the wheel and a voice asked:

"Are we making progress, Neale?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You shouldn't have come here, Aggie!" he cried, above the noise of the storm.]

"Oh, yes! But you shouldn't have come up here, Aggie!" he cried, above the noise of the storm. "You'll be drenched!"

"No, I have on Mr. Howbridge's raincoat. I made him and Ruthie let me come up here to help you. You certainly need help in this emergency."

"It's an emergency all right!" declared Neale. "But we may come out of it safely."

"Can't I help you steer?" asked Agnes. "I know how."

"Yes, you may help. I'm trying to make--"

Neale never finished that sentence. A moment later there was a jar that made him and Agnes stagger, and then the _Bluebird_ ceased to progress under the power of her motor and was again being blown before the fury of the storm.

CHAPTER XXII

ON THE ISLAND

"What's the matter? What has happened?" cried Agnes, clinging partly to Neale and partly to the wheel to preserve her balance. "Are we sinking?"

"Oh, no," he answered. "We either struck something, or the motor has gone bad and stopped. I think it's the last. I'd better go and see."

"I'll take the wheel," Agnes offered.

"You don't need to," said her companion. "She had no steerageway on her; and you might as well keep out of the storm. The rain is fierce!"

Agnes decided to take this advice, since staying on deck now would do no good and Neale was going below.

Neale raced to the motor room, where he found Hank ruefully contemplating the silent engine.

"What's the matter?" asked Neale. "Is she broken?"

"Busted, or something," was the answer. "If this was a mule, now, I could argue with it. But I don't know enough about motors to take any chances. All I know is she was going all right, and then she suddenly laid down on me--stopped dead."

"Yes, I felt it," returned Neale. "Well, we'll have to see what the trouble is."

Agnes had gone into the main cabin where she found her sisters and Mr.

Howbridge. Mrs. MacCall, in a nightcap she had forgotten to remove, was sitting in one corner.

"Oh, the perils o' the deep! The perils o' the deep!" she murmured. "The salty seas will s.n.a.t.c.h us fra the land o' the livin'!"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mr. Howbridge, for he saw that Dot and Tess were getting frightened by the fear of the Scotch housekeeper's words. "Lake Macopic isn't salty, and it isn't deep. We'll be all right in a little while. Here's Agnes back to tell us so," he added with a smile at his ward. "What of the night, Watchman?" he asked in a bantering tone.

"Well, it isn't a very pleasant night," Agnes was forced to admit.

"Why aren't we moving?" asked Tess. "We were moving and now we have stopped."

"Neale has gone to see, Tess. He will have things in shape before long,"

was Agnes' not very confident reply.

"Well, we're nice and snug here," said Ruth, guessing that something was wrong, and joining forces with Agnes in keeping it from Mrs. MacCall and the younger children. "We are snug and dry here."

"I think I'll go and give the sailors a hand," Mr. Howbridge said.

"Ruth, you tell these little teases a story," he said as he shifted Dot out of his lap and to a couch where he covered her with a blanket.

"I'll get this wet coat off," remarked Agnes. "My, but it does rain!"

She pa.s.sed Mr. Howbridge his coat.