The Motor Rangers' Wireless Station

“For heaven’s sake,” he panted, as he was hauled to safety on the Nomad’s bridge, “lose no time in getting Doc Chalmers off. Nate,” he added excitedly, turning to the roughly dressed young fellow, “the gasolene tank is leaking. The whole boat reeks of the stuff.”

“Good land o’ Goshen, and that lantern in the cabin be alight!” cried the other, an expression of alarm coming over his sunburned, weather-beaten face.

“Look, he’s on the rail now!” cried Joe, as the third figure, the one of the man still remaining on the launch, was seen to mount the coamings.

There was a sudden flash of flame and the roar of an explosion. Flames shot up from the launch and the lead-colored waters grew crimson under the angry glare.

“The doctor! Nate, do you see the doctor?” asked the other survivor of the sailor.

“No, sir, Mr. Anderson! Land o’ Beulah, I don’t!” wailed the other.

“There he is! Look! Off there!” cried Joe suddenly.

He pointed to a black speck, the head of a human being, in the midst of the blood-red waves.

“He’s missed the life-ring!” groaned the man who had been addressed by the sailor as Mr. Anderson.

“Is he a good swimmer?” demanded Nat anxiously.

“No, he can only handle himself in the water a little,” was the reply.

They all gazed as if fascinated at the struggle on the flame-lit waters surrounding the blazing launch. The face of the castaway was toward them now and they could see his agonized features as he struggled amidst the surges.

“Joe, take the wheel. One of you throw another life-ring after me!” came suddenly in Nat’s voice. “Bear down after me, Joe, and look lively to chuck the second ring if I miss the first!”

Before they could lay hands on him or utter one word of remonstrance, Nat was overboard. On the bridge lay his oilskins, shoes and outer garments. While they had been gazing, horror-stricken, at the struggle for life going on apparently beyond the power of human aid, Nat had acted. But it was a chance so desperate as to seem suicidal.

“Nat! Nat! Come back!” shouted Joe, but it was too late. Nat was already struggling in the towering seas, fighting his way toward the hapless man. The next instant Joe flew to the wheel. In the moment that it had been neglected the Nomad had yawed badly. He signaled Ding-dong to come ahead slowly, and as well as he was able he kept after Nat, in a tremble of fear lest by over-eagerness he might run him down.

“Stand by with those life-rings!” he ordered curtly to the two men already rescued, who did not appear to be so much the worse for their immersion. The sailor and the man addressed as Anderson each picked up a life-ring, and, leaning over the starboard rail, eagerly scanned the water for the moment when they were to fling them out.

“Whatever made Nat take such a mad chance?” groaned Joe to himself as he steadied the Nomad as best he could. “But it was like him, though,” he added, with a quick glow of admiration for his young leader. “He’s the stuff real heroes are made of, is Nat.”

Suddenly the man who had been battling for life in the glare of the burning launch was seen to throw up his hands, and, with a wild cry of despair on his lips, which was echoed by his friends on the Nomad, he vanished.

“Good heavens!” cried Joe in an agonized voice. “Has Nat sacrificed his life in vain?”

He scanned the waters for a glimpse of his chum, but not a sign of the plucky young leader of the Motor Rangers rewarded him.

Like the man he had set out to save, Nat Trevor, too, was apparently engulfed by the seething waters.

CHAPTER VI.

SAVED FROM THE SEA

Joe, till the last day of his life, never forgot the ensuing period of time. It appeared to be years that he stood there amidst the pandemonium of the storm, with his nerves on blade edge and his heart beating suffocatingly with anxiety. The Nomad struggled and plunged like a wild horse, and it required all his muscular strength to hold her within control.

A sudden shout from Nate caused him to look up hopingly.

“There! There they both are!” yelled the sailor excitedly.

The next instant Joe, too, saw them. Right ahead of the Nomad was Nat, apparently buoying up the limp form of Dr. Chalmers on the life-ring which the latter had missed, but which a lucky accident had brought within Nat’s grasp at the very instant almost that Dr. Chalmers sank. Nat had seen that the only chance of saving him was to dive swiftly after him and trust to luck. He had done so, and on coming to the surface had managed to grasp the life-ring. All this, however, they did not know till afterward.

From the bridge of the Nomad the two spare life-rings were flung with right good will, and Nat encased himself in one of the hooplike devices. But it was not till he and his dripping companion were hauled to the Nomad and were safe on board that they realized how great the strain on muscle and nerve had been. Nat swayed and would have reeled against the rail but for the young sailor from the boat, who caught him. As for the man Nat had saved, he lay exhausted on the bridge while his friend bent over him.

Luckily, Nat’s youthful, strong frame was as elastic as a chilled steel spring, and, after boiling hot coffee had been poured into him till he laughingly protested that he was “a regular three-alarm fire,” he was almost as spry and active as usual. Dr. Chalmers, a man of middle age, did not rally from his immersion so quickly, however. He had swallowed quantities of salt water and had had a narrow escape of being overcome altogether.

Ding-dong was summoned from his engines to look after the rescued ones as soon as Nat was ready to “trick” Joe at the wheel, and the latter, in his turn, relieved Ding-dong. Dr. Sartorius held aloof while the stuttering boy explained to his interested auditors the day’s adventures and learned how they came to be in such a fix. Dr. Chalmers, who, it appeared, was an Eastern physician of note spending a short vacation at Santa Barbara, had gone out fishing earlier that afternoon in Nate Spencer’s boat, the Albicore. His friend, Rufus Anderson, an engineer connected with the Government, had accompanied him. Time passed so pleasantly, with the fish biting their heads off, that all thought of time and distance from shore had been lost. It was not till the sun was obscured that any of the party gave heed to the weather, and then it was too late.

“We owe our lives to you boys,” declared the doctor gratefully, “and we can never repay you for what you have done.”

Rufus Anderson warmly echoed the doctor’s praise, and Nate, the sailor, shyly seconded the gratitude. Dr. Chalmers had already agreed to help Nate purchase another boat in place of the Albicore, and so the fisherman felt happier than he might have done at the thought of his trim craft lying a blackened shell in the Pacific.

The doctor expressed great interest in Mr. Jenkins’ case, and, after examining him, declared that in his opinion the surgeon of the Iroquois had exaggerated the nature of his injuries. In his estimation, he said, Mr. Jenkins would pull through all right. Ding-dong stole a look at Dr. Sartorius as his brother physician announced this opinion, and detected an expression of hawklike eagerness on the black-bearded man’s features. He showed an interest beyond that of a perfect stranger in Dr. Chalmers’ opinion.

“Then he will not die, after all?” he asked in his raspy voice, coming forward to the other physician’s side.

Dr. Chalmers turned and scrutinized him quickly.

“Dr. Sartorius,” explained the other, introducing himself. “I have a professional interest in the case. You think this man will live?”

“I do, unquestionably,” was the reply of Dr. Chalmers. Ding-dong saw his eyebrows lift in astonishment at the other’s tone. It was plain that he liked the black-bearded man no better than did the boys.

When Ding-dong, shortly afterward, poked his head above the companionway for a breath of air, he found that the storm was rapidly abating. In fact in the cabin it had been apparent that the movements of the Nomad were becoming less and less erratic and violent. He told Nat of what had occurred below, and Nat, after a moment’s thought, replied:

“There’s something about all this that I can’t fathom, Ding-dong. In fact, things have been moving so swiftly since we left the Iroquois that I haven’t had time to think. Of two things I’m pretty sure, though, and one of them is that Dr. Sartorius came aboard us because he didn’t want Mr. Jenkins out of his sight; and the other is that he had a good reason for wanting to delay the Nomad’s reaching port when he tampered with the engines.”

“Y-y-y-y-you think he der-der-did it, then?” asked Ding-dong.

“Who else could have? I didn’t, you didn’t, and Joe didn’t. The injured man certainly didn’t; and, besides that, didn’t Joe see his Whiskers coming out of the engine room with a monkey wrench? What was he doing in there at all if he hadn’t been tinkering with the motor?”

“Ther-ther-that’s so,” assented the other. “It’s all like a Cher-cher-Chinese puzzle. What are you going to do about it, Nat?”

“If suspicions were legal evidence, I’d hand this fellow over to the authorities as soon as we landed; but I can’t do that very well. They would only laugh at us. Recollect, we’ve got nothing tangible to bring against the man – Hullo, Joe, what’s up now?”

Nat turned quickly as Joe came on deck. His face was troubled.

“The engines are acting awfully queerly again,” he said seriously; “I can’t make out what ails them. Everything appears to be all right, but still they’re not running as they ought.”

“Guess you’d better skip below and look at them, Ding-dong,” said Nat. “No offence meant, Joe, but Ding-dong is the mechanical crank of this outfit.”

Joe and Ding-dong were below some time, during which period the black squall about blew itself out, leaving only a heavy, blind swell to tell of its passing.

When the two lads came on deck again Nat saw at once that they had bad news.

“We’re pretty nearly out of gasolene, Nat,” announced Joe ruefully; “none of us thought to look at the main tank before we started out, and now we’ve only a few gallons left. We’ve pumped that into the auxiliary, and I guess we can limp along a few knots on it.”

“Great mackerel! That’s nice!” exclaimed Nat, shoving back his cap and scratching his curly forelock, a way he had when perplexed. “This is sure our day for troubles,” he added with a grin.