THE WRECKING OF THE KINGFISHER
allowing the propeller to "race" as the vessel kicked her heels up; and as luck would have it the leaky steam pipes began to bother him more than ever. Twice they had to lay to in the trough of the sea while all hands in the engine room struggled to repair some defect. The captain, who had been in command of the ship for a number of years, apparently took it as a matter of course. A voyage in the Kingfisher without some serious engine trouble would have seemed almost unnatural to him.
"My hair 'll be snow white," the chief engineer complained to Dave during a breathing spell on deck. "There's something uncanny aboot yon machinery. It's foolin' us all the time. The thing is possessed. It waits patiently until we get one part patched up, before breaking out in a fresh place, but no sooner we 've got her running than she gets up to her old games. I'm only waitin' for one of the cylinder heads to blow off or the boilers to bust, and then I 'll be able to
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