getting almost too dark to get any more pictures, anyhow,"
Russ declared. "We sure are in for a blow. It's coming up fast too.
We'd better get back to the ship without waiting for a signal. They may
have hoisted one, that we didn't see."

"That's it, I think!" cried the other. "Say, where is the schooner,
anyhow?"

Russ, who was taking the tripod from his camera looked up quickly.

"Why, can't you see her?" asked the young operator.

"No, and I don't believe you can, either, nor can your camera find her.
She's disappeared!"

"Disappeared? Nonsense!" Russ cried. "It's just that the sea mist has
come up and hidden her. It will blow away in a moment. Say, but it is
getting rough!"

Well might he say that, for he could hardly keep his footing on the
platform where he had stood to make the views. He came down into the
half-covered cabin which formed the forward part of the _Ajax_.

"Well, where is the schooner, if you can see her?" growled Pepper Sneed.
"Steer for her if you can sight her--I can't!"

He seemed morose and angry. Perhaps it was just fear. Russ did not stop
to determine that point. The operator took the steering wheel, first
standing up to get an idea of his course.

"Say, it _is_ getting dark!" he cried. "Well, we'll have to go it blind.
We'll pick up the schooner in a minute or two, I expect. She ought to be
right over there," and he pointed.

"Where?" asked Mr. Sneed.

"There," said Russ again.

"Humph! You're away off!" declared his companion. "The last I saw her,
and I was headed right for her, she was over there," and he indicated a
direction differing from that Russ had shown by at least forty-five
degrees.

"I wish they'd show a light!" Russ murmured as he tried to peer through
the mist and the gathering darkness. "Why don't they show a light? We
could see that!"

"Maybe they don't know we're lost," suggested Pepper Sneed.

"Lost!" cried Russ. "We're not lost! We'll be up to them in a minute or
so, but I do wish they'd show a light."

The motorboat _Ajax_ was chugging over the heaving water at good speed,
but as far as the eyes of either of her occupants could see, she might
have been driving straight into the utter desolation of a vast ocean,
for not an object was in sight.

The wind had again taken up that nerve-racking moaning and groaning
sound, as of an unseen giant in distress, and the spray from the crests
of the waves blew in the faces of the two young men, as they crouched