was no escape. Yet the
buoyant hull of the sloop rose every time, shaking the water from her
glistening white sides and bending to the oncoming seas preparatory to
taking another dizzy dive.

The lower half of the mast was still standing, a ragged stump, the
deck itself swept clean of every vestige of wreckage and movable
equipment. What troubled Harriet most was the loss of the water cask.
The small water tank in the cabin had been hurled to the floor by the
pitching of the sloop and its contents spilled. The Meadow-Brook Girl
saw that they were going to be without water to drink, a most serious
thing, provided they were not drowned before needing something to
drink. As she studied the boat, an idea was gradually formed in her
mind, a plan outlined that she determined to try to adopt were the
wind to go down sufficiently to make the attempt prudent. Harriet
called the others to her, and the girls talked it over in all its
details for the better part of an hour.

There was nothing to eat on board now, nor did many of the party feel
like eating. Tommy, however, found her appetite shortly after daybreak
and raised quite a disturbance because there was nothing to be had.
She suggested breaking open the doors that led to the chain locker,
but of this Harriet would not hear. She did not wish water to get in
there, for that appeared to be the one part of the boat that was now
free from it, and that really had saved them from going to the bottom.
In the meantime the wind did not appear to be abating in the
slightest. All that wretched forenoon the majority of the girls,
half-dead from fright and exposure, clung desperately to the cushions
of the locker seats, wild-eyed and despairing. All that forenoon
Harriet Burrell, Jane McCarthy, Tommy, Hazel and Miss Elting stuck to
their posts and worked without once pausing to rest. About noon the
wind suddenly died out, then began veering in puffs from various
quarters of the compass.

"Now, Jane, is our chance," cried Harriet. "The storm is broken, but
the seas will be high all the rest of the day. If we can fix up some
sort of a sail, we may be able to reach land before long."

CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

When the "Sister Sue" failed to return the previous afternoon, and the
storm came on, Mrs. Livingston, greatly alarmed, sent a party of girls
with a guardian to the nearest telephone to send word to Portsmouth
that the sloop and its passengers were missing. A revenue c