"It really is something of a blister," Amy remarked, looking at it carefully.
"There's water in it already, and it hurts!" wailed the clergyman's daughter.
"I see the water," declared Amy. "It may be an ever-living spring there.
You know, people have water on the brain and water on the knee; but seems to me a spring in your hand must be lots worse."
"You never will be serious," said Nell, half laughing. "If the blister was on your hand----"
"Don't say a word! I think I shall have one before we reach the landing," declared Amy. "And, girls, what do you suppose that grouchy old fisherman will say when he sees we lost his rudder?"
"He won't see that," replied Jessie.
"What! Why, listen to her!" gasped Amy. "Is she going to try to get away before he misses the rudder?"
"Not at all," returned her chum calmly, while Nell began to laugh. "It was _you_ who lost the rudder, Amy Drew. Nell and I had nothing to do with that crime."
"Ouch!" cried Amy. "I wouldn't have lost it if it hadn't been for the thunderstorm coming down on us so suddenly. And that old fellow didn't warn us of any squall."
"He warned us that squalls were prevalent on the bay," replied Nell. "He said he knew nothing about the weather. And I guess he told the truth."
"There is a great lack of unaminity in this trio," complained Amy. "If I lost the rudder, didn't we all lose it?"
When they reached the inlet, however, the old fisherman was just as surprising as he had been in the first place.
"Don't blame me," he said when the girls came ashore. "I told you I didn't know anything about the weather. I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd lost the boat."
"We only lost a part of it," said Amy quickly. "The rudder."
"Well, it wasn't much good. I can find another around somewhere. Lucky to get the hull of the boat back, I am."
"You didn't get the whole of it back, I tell you," said Amy, soberly.
He blinked at her, and without even a smile, said:
"Oh! You mean that for a joke, do you? Well, I don't understand jokes any more than I do the weather. No, you needn't pay me for the rudder.
'Tain't nothing."
The trio had a good deal to talk about when they got home, but Darry and Burd came in at dinner with the news that the _Marigold_ was all ready for sea and that they would get under way right after breakfast the next morning.
Dr. Stanley and his daughter and Jessie and Amy were to be the boys'
guests on this trip, and the idea was to go along the coast as far as Boston and return. Mrs. Norwood had become used by this time to the boys going back and forth in the yacht and after her own voyage down to the island had forgotten her fears for the young folks.
"I am sure Darry will not expose the girls to danger," she said to her husband. "But I am glad Dr. Stanley is going with them. He has such good sense."
Henrietta wanted to go along. She did not see why she could not go on the yacht if "Miss Jessie and Miss Amy" were going. She might have whined a bit about it, if it had not been that she was reminded of the Radio Man.
"You want to look out," Amy advised her. "You know the Radio Man is watching you and like enough he'll tell everybody just how bad you are."
"Gee!" sighed Henrietta. "It's awful to be responsible for owning an island, ain't it?"
The girls were eager to be off in the morning, and they scurried around and packed their overnight bags and discussed what they should wear for two hours before breakfast. Burd was not to be hurried at his morning meal.
"No knowing what we may get aboard ship," he grumbled. "If it comes up rough there may be no chance at all to eat properly."
"Now, Burd Alling!" exclaimed Amy. "How can you?"
"How can I eat? Perfectly. Got teeth and a palate for that enjoyment."
"But don't suggest that we may have bad weather. After that tempest yesterday----"
"You'll have no hotel to run to if we get squally weather," laughed her brother. "I think, however, that after that shower we should have clear weather for some time. Don't let the 'Burd Alling Blues' bother you."
"Anyway," said Jessie, scooping out her iced melon with some gusto, "we have a radio on board and we can send an S O S if we get into trouble, can't we?"
"Come to think of it," said Darry, "that old radio hasn't been working any too well. You will have to give it the once over, Jess, when you get aboard."
This made Jessie all the more eager to embark on the yacht. She was so much interested in radio that she wanted, as Amy said, to be "fooling with it all of the time!"
But when they got under way and the _Marigold_ steamed out to sea there were so many other things to see and to be interested in that the girls forgot all about the radio for the time being, in the mere joy of being alive.
Darry had shipped a cook; but the boys had to do a good deal of the deck work to relieve the forecastle hands. Stoking the furnace to keep up steam was no small job. The engines of the _Marigold_ were old and, as Skipper Pandrick said, "were hogs for steam." To tell the truth the boilers leaked and so did the cylinders. The boys had had trouble with the machinery ever since Darry had put the _Marigold_ into commission.
But the young owner did not want to go to the expense of getting new driving gear for the yacht. And, after all, the trouble did not seem to be serious.
The speed of the boat, however, was all the girls and other guests expected. The sea was smooth and blue, the wind was fair, the sun shone warmly, and altogether it was a charming day. Nobody expected trouble when everything was so calm and blissful.
But some time before evening haze gathered along the sealine and hid the main shore and Hackle Island, too. Nobody expected a sea spell, however, from this mild warning--not even Skipper Pandrick.
"This is a time of light airs, if unsettled," he said. "Thunderstorms ashore don't often bother ships at sea. There's lightning in them clouds without a doubt, but like enough we won't know anything about it."
It was true the _Marigold's_ company was not disturbed in the least during the evening. After dinner the heavy mist drove them below and they played games, turned on the talking machine, and sang songs until bedtime. Sometime in the night Jessie woke up enough to realize that there was an unfamiliar noise near.
"Do you hear it?" she demanded, poking Amy in the berth over her head.
"Hear what?" snapped Amy. "I do wish you would let me sleep. I was a thousand miles deep in it. What's the noise?"
"Why," explained Jessie, puzzled, "it sounds like a cow."
"Cow? Huh! I hope it's a contented cow, I do, or else the milk may not be good for your coffee."
"She doesn't sound contented," murmured Jessie. "Listen!"
The silence outside the portlight was shattered by a mournful, stuttering sound. Nell Stanley sat up suddenly on the couch across the stateroom and blinked her eyes.
"Oh, mercy!" she gasped. "There must be a terrible fog."
"Fog?" squealed Amy. "And Jessie was telling me there was a cow aboard.
Is that the fog-horn? Well, make up your mind, Jess, you'll get no milk from that animal."