enough,” said Teddy. “I wonder who he is.”
“I’ve seen that fellow somewhere,” affirmed Lester, “but for the life of me I can’t tell where. But that can wait till another time. What we want to do now is to get to work. He can’t have swallowed much water in the little time he was under. Get him down on his back with his head low. Tear his shirt open at the throat. Work his arms slowly up and down. Here, Bill, you take one arm and Teddy the other. You’ll have to do it without much help from Fred and me, for we’ll have all we can do to get this boat to shore. The wind’s getting stronger every minute and we simply must reach land before dark.”
He resumed the tiller, while Fred again took the sheet, and they swung the boat around to its original course.
“I’d like to save the motor boat if we could,” remarked Lester, as they swung around. “It looks as though it had cost a heap of money. But just now it’s a question of life rather than money, and we’ll have to let it go.”
“It does seem a pity,” agreed Fred, as he glanced at the boat tossing about helplessly, now wallowing in the trough and again rising to the crest of a wave. “But perhaps it may keep afloat till the storm is over. We’ll cruise around and look for it to-morrow or next day.”
Bill and Teddy were working vigorously, applying all their knowledge of “first aid” to their unconscious passenger. For several minutes their work seemed to be without result, but at last they heaved sighs of relief as they saw a beating at the temples and a fluttering of the eyelids. A moment later the stranger opened his eyes and looked vaguely around him. He tried to speak, but no words came.
“Don’t talk just now,” Teddy admonished him. “You’ve been in a tight pinch, but you’re all right. Just relax and go to sleep if you want to. We’re on the job and we’ll take care of you.”
The eyes closed again, and the boys, seeing that the danger was past, stopped their “pump-handle work,” as Teddy called it, and set about making the stranger’s position more comfortable. They made a rough bed for him with some blankets that they dragged from the tiny cabin and put a coat beneath his head for a pillow.
“The longer he stays asleep, the better it will be for him,” commented Bill.
“It’s lucky for him it isn’t his last sleep,” said Teddy. “It would have been that, if it hadn’t been for that brother of mine,” he added with a touch of pride.
“Fred surely is a plucky old scout and a quick thinker too,” agreed Bill. “He had his shoes off and was in the water before the rest of us fairly realized what had happened.”
“He can swim like a fish,” said Teddy, “and with that rope in his hand, I didn’t fear but we could get him on board again. But my heart was in my mouth when I thought of that shark.”
“It was taking a big risk,” declared Bill. “By the way, I don’t see anything more of that ugly fin. I guess he’s given us the go-by for to-day.”
But even as he spoke, there was a rush in the water alongside, and they caught a glimpse of a dark body at least sixteen feet in length, and saw a wicked eye gleaming up at them. It was only for a second and again the shark vanished. But his sudden appearance, at the very moment they were talking of him, made the boys shudder.
“He’s following us!” exclaimed Bill.
“That’s what,” said Teddy. “He knows we’re in a small boat and that the storm may capsize it. If it were a canoe or a rowboat, he’d probably try to upset it himself.”
“He couldn’t have been far off when Fred was in the water,” shivered Bill. “He may have been making for him at the very minute we hauled him out.”
“We got both out just in the nick of time, I guess,” assented Teddy soberly, and his heart was full of thankfulness as he gazed at his elder brother.
The latter just at present had his hands full. The storm had increased in fury and was now blowing half a gale. The sail threatened to split into ribbons, and the gunwale was constantly under water as the Ariel plunged along. Lester’s muscles were strained to the utmost to hold the rudder against the heavy waves that seemed bound to disable it.
His face was set and worried, as he glanced alternately at sea and sky. He seemed to be debating a question that bothered him. At last he reached a decision.
“It’s no use,” he said as he jammed over the tiller and changed the course of the Ariel. “We’ll never make Bartanet Shoals with the wind as it is now. We’d have to do too much tacking and beating up into the wind.”
“What will you do then?” inquired Fred anxiously.
“We’ll make for a cove I know of, where we can wait till the storm is over,” answered Lester. “And we’ll have to do some tall hustling to get there before night comes on. Here goes for a run before the wind.”
CHAPTER III
A WELCOME REFUGE
The change of course had not been effected without shipping a considerable amount of water as the boat hung for a moment in the wind. Bill and Teddy bailed desperately, and an instant later the Ariel was heading in a new direction. The wind now, instead of striking her sail at an angle, was following directly over the stern, and the little craft fairly flew. The power of the wind made her careen at a dangerous angle, and Bill and Teddy had to climb up on the further side to keep her from capsizing.
It was perilous sailing, but the bite of the salt spray on their cheeks and the swift pace at which they were moving filled the boys with wild exhilaration. They might have been four young Vikings out on a voyage of discovery, as they faced and dared the storm.
“See how she foots it through the water!” exclaimed Lester. “Isn’t she a beauty?”
“You bet she is!” responded Teddy with enthusiasm. “I don’t wonder that sailors get so fond of their boats that they’d rather go down with them than live without them.”
“I can’t say that I’ve got so far as that,” laughed Lester. “But I’m sure I’d feel as bad about losing the Ariel as you boys would if you lost Star and Colonel.”
“You’d feel mighty bad then,” responded Teddy, as he thought of the horses that he and Fred had brought with them from the West.
At this moment, his attention was attracted by a movement on the part of the boy they had rescued. They had sheltered him as much they could, but they could not prevent an occasional dash of spray from striking his face and this had hastened his awakening. This time, his eyes were lighted with intelligence, and it was clear that he had largely recovered from the effect of his immersion.
Teddy bent over toward him.
“How are you feeling?” he asked with a friendly smile.
“Better,” was the response in a faint voice. “I can’t remember yet, though, just what happened to me.”
“A big wave threw you overboard,” broke in Bill. “We happened to be cruising near by, and we picked you up.”
“I guess I must have hit my head against something when I went over,” said the stranger. “I don’t remember a thing that happened while I was in the water. Did I swim?”
“You
