The Motor Rangers' Wireless Station

“I certainly do; and I’m afraid that it’s going to hit us before we can get ashore. It is going to be a hummer, too, from the looks of things, right out of the nor’west.”

“But we’re all right?”

“Oh, sure! The Nomad can stand up where a bigger craft might get into trouble.”

Nat’s tone was confident, but as Joe dived below on his errand he glanced behind him at the purplish-black clouds that were racing across the sky toward them. The sea began to rise and there was an odd sort of moaning sound in the air, like the throbbing of the bass string of a titanic viol.

“This is going to be a rip snorter,” he said in an undertone. “I’ll bet the bottom’s tumbled out of the barometer.”

CHAPTER III.

IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM

“Phew! Hold tight, Joe; here she comes!”

Under the dark canopy of lowering clouds the leaden sea about the Nomad began to smoke and whip up till the white horses champed and careered, tossing their heads heavenward under the terrific onslaught of the wind.

“Some storm, Nat,” gasped Joe, clutching the rail tightly with both hands as the Nomad began to pitch and toss like a bucking bronco.

“About as bad a blow as we’ve had on this coast in a long time,” agreed Nat, raising his voice to be heard above the shrieking tumult of wind and sea.

“I’ll go below and get the oilskins, Nat,” volunteered Joe.

“You’d better; this will get worse before it’s better.”

Grabbing at any hand-hold to prevent himself being thrown violently on his back, Joe made his way below once more.

“Goodness, this is fierce,” he muttered, as he went down the companionway and entered the cabin. Ding-dong had switched on the current from the dynamo in the engine-room and the place was flooded with light.

The injured man lay on the lounge where he had been placed and was breathing heavily. At the table sat Dr. Sartorius. He was bending over a bundle of papers and perusing them so intently that, above all the disturbance of the elements without, he did not hear Joe enter the cabin. He looked up as the boy’s shadow fell across the papers. Startled by some emotion for which Joe could not account, he jumped to his feet, at the same time thrusting the papers into an inner pocket.

“What do you want?” he breathed angrily, glaring at the boy with fury in his dark eyes.

“Why, I came below for the oilskins. What’s the matter, did I startle you?” asked Joe, regarding the man curiously. On his face was an odd blend of alarm and ferocity.

“Yes, – that is, no. I am very nervous. You must forgive me. I – there is bad weather outside?” he broke off abruptly.

“It’s blowing pretty hard,” Joe informed him, while he still noted the man’s odd manner.

“It will delay us in reaching shore?” demanded the other, sinking back into his chair and staring at the heavily breathing form of Mr. Jenkins.

“I’m afraid so. If the weather gets any worse we shall have to slow down. It’s too bad, for it is important that we get Mr. Jenkins to the hospital as quickly as possible. He needs immediate medical aid.”

Dr. Sartorius ignored this remark. Instead he fixed his queer eyes on Mr. Jenkins.

“How much shall we be delayed?” he asked eagerly the next minute.

“Impossible to say,” rejoined Joe; and then he added, with his accustomed frank bluntness, “You don’t speak as if you were in any particular hurry about landing.”

“It’s Jenkins yonder I’m thinking of,” was the reply in a semi-musing tone. “He may die if we are delayed, and you say that the storm is a severe one?”

“We’ll have to slow down, I guess,” rejoined Joe, and then, as the gong in the engine-room rang for reduced speed, he nodded his head. “There’s the slow-up signal now. It must be getting worse. I’ve got to get on deck.”

So saying, he rummaged two suits of oilskins out of a locker and hastened on deck. Spume and smoky spray were flying over the Nomad in clouds. The craft looked like an eggshell amidst the ranges of watery hills. Joe slipped into his oilskins and then took the wheel while Nat donned his foul-weather rig.

Presently Ding-dong, grimy from his engines, joined them.

“How is everything running below, Joe?” asked Nat, as the figure of the young engineer appeared.

“Fur-fur-fine as a h-h-h-hundred dollar war-watch,” sputtered Ding-dong; “ber-ber-but I’ve got her slowed down to ten knots. How about the sick man?”

“That can’t be helped,” declared Nat. “If I were to make any more speed in this sea, we’d all be bound for Davy Jones’ locker before many minutes had passed.”

“Hum! That is certainly a fact,” assented Joe, as a big green sea rose ahead of them like a watery hillock and the Nomad drove her flaring bow into it. The water crashed down about them and thundered on the deck.

“There’s a sample copy,” sputtered Joe, dashing the water from his eyes and giving a grin; but, despite his attempt to make light of the matter, he grew very sober immediately afterward. Stout craft as the Nomad was, she was being called upon to face about as bad a specimen of weather as the Motor Rangers had ever encountered. What made matters worse, they had a badly – perhaps mortally – injured man on their hands. Delay in reaching harbor might result fatally. They all began to look worried.

Ding-dong dared to spend no more time on deck away from his engines. If anything happened to the motor, things would be serious indeed. He dived below and oiled the laboring motor most assiduously. Every now and then the propeller of the storm-tossed Nomad would lift out of the water, and then the engine raced till Ding-dong feared it would actually rack itself to pieces. But there was no help for it; they must keep on now at whatever cost.

For an hour or more the wind continued to blow a screaming gale, and then it suddenly increased in fury to such a degree that Nat and Joe, who were taking turns relieving each other at the wheel, could feel it pressing and tearing against them like some solid thing. Their voices were blown back down their throats when they tried to talk. Their garments were blown out stiff as boiler iron.

“How much longer can we stand this – ” Joe was beginning, shouting the words into Nat’s ears, when suddenly there was a jarring quiver throughout the fabric of the motor craft and the familiar vibration of the engines ceased. Simultaneously the Nomad was lifted on the back of a giant comber and hurled into a valley of green water, from which it seemed impossible that she could ever climb again. But valiantly she made the ascent in safety, only to go reeling and wallowing down the other side in a condition of terrifying helplessness.

“Get below and see what’s happened,” bawled Nat at Joe.

The other hastened off on his errand, clinging with might and main to whatever projection offered. He had just reached the engine room when he saw something that made him utter a cry of astonishment.

Slipping from behind a door which communicated with the cabin beyond was Dr. Sartorius. In his hand he had a monkey wrench. As for Ding-dong Bell, he was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER IV.

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.”