As the girl and her companion in the dory had refused to heed his warning, Ralph must needs risk his own life.

In spite of the seaworthiness of the lightkeeper's dory, Ralph did not believe Degger was seaman enough to handle the boat in a black squall.

On him might rest the burden of the couple's rescue from the tempest that threatened.

He snubbed the skiff's painter to the mooring buoy. The motor-boat was in readiness for immediate use. He cast off the mooring hawser and went forward to turn the wheel. The spark caught the first time he threw the wheel over. The exhaust coughed sharply. Ralph eased on the engine and seized the spokes of the steering wheel as the propeller blades began to revolve.

The _Fenique_ swam out into the open cove, and he headed her for the points of the double reef. The mouth of sheltered Clinkerport Bay was filled with racing, foam-crested waves, the slate-hued sides of which were veined with yellow. It was a wicked-looking patch of water into which Ralph steered the motor-boat.

Above the thunder of the breakers on the rocks and the roar of the surf along the sh.o.r.e he could now hear the high whine of the coming squall.

The black cloud seemed suddenly to have expanded into a smothering mantle over both sh.o.r.e and sea.

As he steered the motor-boat around the out-thrust rocks, the black squall burst. The dory had not escaped the peril of it. Lorna and Conny had got up the kedge, and now Degger was at the oars tugging vainly to drive the dory sh.o.r.eward.

"The poor fish!" was Ralph's rather futile comment.

A good boatman would have known instantly that to head into the wind was a perfectly useless undertaking. There was a short mast and a sail lashed under the thwarts. To step the mast and spread a hand's breadth of canvas, so keeping the dory before the wind and to outrun the waves that were already beginning to climb, was the seamanly thing to do.

Just as Ralph had feared, Degger was doing what most surely would bring the girl and himself into jeopardy.

"Ought to be a law against fellows like him ever getting into a boat!"

muttered Endicott, increasing the speed of his own craft when clear of the point. "He's lost one boat already. You'd think that would satisfy him. And to lug Lorna along with him--"

Ralph might have been somewhat unfair in this criticism of Degger; but he was much worried for Lorna Nicholet's safety. Under the increasing strokes of the propeller the _Fenique_ began fairly to bound over the waves. She shook all through her length when her propeller blades plunged out of the water. She was only "hitting the high spots" when she came into view of the two in the dory.

Lorna screamed in satisfaction at sight of the _Fenique_ with Ralph standing in her c.o.c.kpit. It was a cheering sight.

But Conny missed his stroke as he glared over his shoulder to see the approaching rescuer. A wave slapped aboard the dory, half filled it, and dragged one of the oars from Degger's hand.

Lorna screamed again, this time in actual fear. She was waist deep in the sea that had come inboard. Degger showed no white feather, although he was awkward in getting into the stern with the remaining oar. The dory had begun to swing broadside to the bursting seas, and their situation was indeed perilous.

Ralph shouted a command that the two in the dory did not hear. Degger knew of but one thing to do. He saw the dory in danger of being swamped in the trough between two waves, and he plunged the oar into the sea to right her. The next instant another wave came inboard, the impact of it all but throwing him on his face in the bottom of the boat.

The dory began to settle under this weight of water. Their submersion seemed to be at hand.

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 c.o.c.kpit filled and she became quite unmanageable.

The dory was fairly water-logged. That indeed was the salvation for the moment of her two pa.s.sengers. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 c.o.c.kpit 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.