The Campfire Girls on Station Island: or, The Wireless from the Steam Yacht

“Is it serious, Skipper?” demanded the young collegian, anxiously.

“I don’t know how bad it is yet. Tell the helmsman to head nor’east. Maybe we’d better make for some anchorage, after all.”

Darry ran to the wheelhouse. The other passengers began to get excited. Nell ran to her father and told him what she had first discovered.

“Well, having discovered the fire in time, undoubtedly they will be able to put it out,” said Dr. Stanley, comfortingly.

But this did not prove to be easy. Skipper Pandrick had to come up after a while for a breath of cool air and to remove his oilskins. Darry and Burd got into overalls and helped in handling the hose. The steam needed to work the pump, however, brought the engines down to a very slow movement. The Marigold scarcely kept her headway.

The fire, which had undoubtedly been smouldering a long time, was obstinate. The water the skipper and his helpers poured upon it raised the level of water in the bilge until Darry declared he feared the yacht would be water-logged.

Meanwhile the wind grew in savageness. Instead of being gusty, it blew more and more violently out of the northeast. When the helmsman tried to head into it, under the skipper’s relayed instructions by Darry, the lack of steam kept the old Marigold marking time instead of forging ahead.

“If we have to put the steam to the pump to clear the bilge after this,” grumbled the pessimistic Burd, “we’ll never reach any shelter. Might as well run for the Bermudas.”

“Won’t that be fine!” cried Amy. “I have always wanted to go to the Bermudas, and we’ve never gone.”

“Fine girl, you,” retorted Burd. “You don’t know when you are in danger.”

“Fire’s out!” announced Amy. “The skipper says so. And I am not afraid of a capful of wind.”

There was more danger, however, than the girls imagined. The water that had been poured into the yacht’s hold did not make her any more seaworthy. It was necessary to start the pump to try to clear the hold.

The clapperty-clap; clapperty-clap! of the pump and the water swishing across the deck to be vomited out of the hawse holes was nothing to add to the passengers’ feelings of confidence. Besides, the water came very clear, and at its appearance the skipper looked doleful.

“What’s the matter, Skipper?” asked Darry, seeing quickly that something was still troubling the old man.

“Why, Mr. Darry, that don’t look good to me, and that’s a fact,” the sailing master said.

“Why not? The pump is clearing her fast.”

“Is it?” grumbled Pandrick, shaking his head.

“Of course it is!” exclaimed Darry, with some exasperation. “Don’t be an Old Man of the Sea.”

“That’s exactly what I am, Mr. Darry,” said the skipper. “I’m so old a hand at sea that I’m always looking for trouble. I confess it. And I see trouble – and work for all hands – right here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jessie, who chanced to be by. “The pump works all right just as Darry says, doesn’t it?”

“But, by gorry!” ejaculated the skipper, “it looks as though we were just pumping the whole Atlantic through her seams.”

“Goodness! What do you mean?” Jessie demanded.

“You think she is leaking?” asked Darry, in some trouble.

“Bilge ain’t clean water like that,” answered Pandrick. “That’s as clear as the sea itself. Mind you! I don’t say she leaks more’n enough to keep her sweet. But if those pumps don’t suck purt’ soon, I shall have my suspicions.”

“Darry!” ejaculated Jessie, “your yacht is falling apart. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t believe it,” muttered Darry.

He had, however, to admit it after a time. It seemed as though the Marigold were suffering one misfortune after another. The fire, which might have been very serious, was extinguished; but the yacht lay deep in the troubled sea, rolling heavily, and the water pumped through the pipe was plainly seeping in through the seams of her hull.

“Goodness me! shall we have to take to the boat and the life raft?” demanded Amy.

It was scarcely possible to joke much about the situation. Even Amy Drew’s “famous line of light conversation” could not keep up their spirits.

The wind continued to blow harder and harder. The yacht could no longer head into it. Dr. Stanley looked grave. Nell, first frightened by her discovery of the fire in the hold, was now in tears.

To add to the seriousness of the situation, there was not another vessel in sight.

CHAPTER XXII – A RADIO CALL THAT FAILED

“Of course,” Amy said composedly, “if worse comes to worst, we can send the news by radio that the yacht is sinking and bring to our rescue somebody – somebody – ”

“Yes, we can!” exclaimed Burd Alling. “A revenue cutter, I suppose? Don’t you suppose the United States Government has anything better to do than to look out for people who don’t know enough to look out for themselves?”

“That seems to be the Government’s mission a good deal of the time,” replied Dr. Stanley, with a smile. “But you don’t think it will be necessary to call for help, do you, Darrington?” he asked the sober-looking owner of the yacht.

“Well, the fire’s out, that’s sure – ”

“You bet it is!” growled Burd. “It had to be out, there’s so much water in the hold.”

“But we are not sinking!” cried Amy.

“Lucky we’re not,” said Burd. “The radio doesn’t work.”

“Why, how you talk,” Nell said admonishingly. “You would scare us if we did not know you so well, Burd.”

“You don’t know the half of it!” exclaimed the young fellow. “Fuel is getting low, too. Skipper wants us to work the pump by hand. That means Darry and me to ‘man the pumps.’”

“And we can help,” said Jessie, cheerfully. “If the skipper thinks he needs to make more steam for the engines, why can’t we all take turns at the pump?”

“Sounds like a real shipwreck story,” her chum observed, but doubtfully.

“It will cause a mutiny,” declared Burd. “I didn’t ship on the Marigold to work like Old Bowser on the treadmill. And that is about how I feel.”

“You can get out and walk if you don’t like it,” Darry reminded him.

“And I suppose you think I wouldn’t. For two cents – ”

Just then the yacht pitched sharply and Burd almost lost his footing. The waves were really boisterous and occasionally a squall of rain swooped down and, with the spray, wet the entire deck and those upon it.

Jessie was not greatly afraid of the elements or of what they could do to the yacht. But she was made anxious by the repetition of the statement that the radio was out of order. Originally the Marigold had had a small wireless plant, with storage batteries. Signals by Morse could be exchanged with other ships and with stations ashore within a limited distance.

But when Darry had bought the radio receiving set he had disconnected the broadcasting machine and linked up the regenerative circuit with the stationary batteries. As he had explained to Jessie, both systems could not be used at once.

They had found that neither the receiving set nor the old wireless set worked well. It looked as though the boys had overlooked something in rigging the new set and the radio girls quite realized that in this emergency a general and perhaps a thorough overhauling of the wires and connections would be necessary to discover just where the fault lay.