sound like water washing up on the
beach. We couldn't land with this boat as though it were smaller."

"That's a fact. Say! if we were in our canoes, now, how easy it would be
to run up on that same beach, lift the jolly little craft out, and go
ashore! As it is, we must stay afloat, and take the chances of a storm
coming up."

"Storm!" echoed Will, looking hastily around. "Oh, come, now! You don't
think there can be any danger of that happening, do you, Frank?"

"Hardly. If a little breeze rises, it may carry this beastly old fog
away, and then we can see where we are. Meanwhile, Jerry and I will try
to find out what it is that makes our motor balk just when we want it
most."

They sat there for a long while, Bluff and Will looking this way and
that, to see if there was any object near by; but only that heavy blanket
of sea fog surrounded them.

"Do you hear the roll of the water on the shore still?" asked Frank
finally.

"I haven't for some time, now," admitted Bluff.

"And I was just wondering, as I sat here and watched the water as it
flowed past, whether we were not drifting out further all the time,"
suggested Will.

"Say! what makes you think that? Seems to me you're always scaring up
ghosts, and making things look blacker than they are," grumbled Bluff.

"Well, you just watch that water passing. What does that mean, eh?
Something is moving all the while, and it's either the boat or the
tide," claimed Will.

Frank stuck his head over the side and gave a look.

"He's right about it," was his speedy comment. "The tide is carrying us
out all the time, and that's why you don't hear the sound of the rollers
on the sand!"

"Wow! You're giving it to us good and hard now. That sounds like trouble.
This old gulf is some wide, I know, and it'll take us quite a spell
to cross the duck pond at this rate!" exclaimed Bluff in dismay.

"Can't either of you find out what's wrong with the engine?" asked Will.

"We think we've guessed it, and we're working on that line now; but it
may take some little time, so don't get impatient," returned Frank.

If he felt any alarm himself, his manner did not indicate it; but then
Frank had a faculty for disguising his feelings when it would add to the
comfort of his chums.

So the old state of affairs continued, he and Jerry with their heads bent
low over the machinery, and the others sitting there on deck, exchanging
doleful words from time to time, and surveying that gr