it to be good. If anybody has a scheme for helping along, the rest of
us would be glad to listen to the same, and take it up too, if there was
a ghost of a show that we could profit by doing that."

Apparently nobody did have any idea of bettering conditions as they now
prevailed; for not a word came in reply, to Thad's request for several
minutes. During this time the boys sat there and watched the queer
actions of the engine that Thad was bending over, now doing this and
again that in order to see whether he could not obtain more profitable
results from the laboring motor.

"I s'pose now," Bumpus finally did muster up courage enough to say, "if
it came to the worst, and you saw we couldn't make that harbor, why, you
might head her on to the beach, so that we could get ashore, no matter
what, happened to the old ship?"

"Yes, how about that, Thad?" questioned Step Hen, as though somehow a
thought along the same lines might have been passing through his mind
just then.

Thad shook his head in the negative.

"That would be a risky proceeding, at any time," he observed, "when you
consider that the shore along here is composed of sharp-pointed rocks,
and that if there was any sea on at all we'd probably be wrecked long
before we could land. That must mean we'd all be thrown into the surf,
and perhaps lose our lives trying to swim ashore among the rocks. No
we'll have to try some other plan than that, or else stick to the boat,
and hope the storm won't be so very bad after all."