k I'm headed
for the schooner, though I ought to have fetched her sooner than this,
at the speed we're going."

"Perhaps she's blowing away from us," suggested Mr. Sneed.

"That's it!" Russ cried. "Why didn't I think of that before? She's
running away from us. She can't help it, though, for she must scud
before this storm. We've got to increase our speed to catch up to her.
The wind and our engine ought to be more than a match for her sails
alone. I'll put on more speed."

The wind was now a howling gale.

Suddenly, as they drove on, the motor seemed to increase its speed.

"What's that?" asked Mr. Sneed. "I thought you had her running at her
limit."

"So did I," Russ answered, bending over the machinery. Then he cried:
"She's racing! We've lost our propeller! We're disabled in this storm!"

CHAPTER XX

IN THE VORTEX

"Haven't we looked distressed long enough?"

"I'm going below. I can't bear to watch that storm!"

The speakers were Alice and Ruth DeVere respectively, and they were
leaning over the rail of the _Mary Ellen_, peering off into the swirl of
driving mists, and across the heaving waters toward where the motorboat
had been last seen.

"Yes, I think Russ has enough pictures," Mr. Pertell said in answer to
the remark of Alice. "I think you all looked sufficiently distressful.
If the scenes of the shipwreck itself go as well as the first part of
the drama has gone, we'll have a fine film."

"Then may I go below?" asked Ruth. "I don't like the looks of the
weather."

"It does seem as though we'd get the storm after all," her father
remarked.

"Go below, by all means," assented the manager. "We have done enough for
today, and I'll signal Russ to come in, if he hasn't already started to
do so. My, but this wind is blowing a regular gale!"

Others than Ruth found it uncomfortable on deck, and there was a general
movement toward the cabins which had been fitted up with considerable
comfort, even if the craft was an old one.

But just then, when there was a partial calm before another burst of
fury on the part of the storm, something occurred that threw the ship
into a flurry of excitement for a time. The sailors were making some
changes in the craft's canvas, when suddenly the throat and peak
halyards of the mainsail either parted, or, coming loose from the
cleats, came down on the run. The effect was to lower the sail so
quickly, and in such a fashion, with the wind blowing hard against