"If we could only start the motor we could turn around and go back," suggested Frank, while they were trying to make their way up front, to the wheel, without banging against the sides of the cabin.
"Oh, we'd better not try to monkey with that—especially in this storm," said Bob. "If we can only keep the boat straight ahead, so it won't whirl around so, and make us dizzy, it will be a good thing. After the storm we can try the motor."
"But by that time we will be out to sea!" cried Sammy.
"We can't help it," came from Bob. "Here goes now, to see what sort of a course I can steer."
The wheel was twisting and turning this way and that as the waves moved the rudder. Bob turned the spokes until he had the one with ring marks on it exactly upright in front of him. When this had been done, Silas had told them, the rudder was straight, and the boat would go straight ahead.
And, as Bob looked from the bull's-eye, he saw nothing ahead but a straight course of water. The waves had been whipped into whitecaps of foam, but there seemed no obstruction, and with the wind blowing them, and the tide carrying them, all the Fairview boys could do was to keep on.
"It sure is some storm!" murmured Frank, as a louder clash of thunder than any before seemed to shake the very boat.
"And we're in it!" murmured Sammy. "What will our folks think?"
"Oh, Silas will tell them," said Bob, as he braced his feet apart to meet the heaving motion of the boat.
"Yes, he's left behind there on the dock," said Frank. "Our rope must have broke when the wind and waves banged us about that time. He'll tell the folks all right."
"But that won't stop mother from worrying," said Bob, anxiously, for he disliked to cause her or his father anxiety.
