nd then the gasoline
engine would emit a strange, whirring noise. Harry Sears, who was
watching the engine, heard it lose a beat in its regular rhythmical
throb. "See here, Tom," he called suddenly, "something is wrong with
this machinery. I can't tell what it is."

Harry had spoken just in time. The motor launch stopped stock still in
the middle of the river. Tom flew to his beloved engine. "Don't worry,"
he urged cheerfully, "I'll have her started again in a few seconds."

Tom kept doing mysterious things to the disgruntled engine. The two boys
and Lillian watched him in fascinated silence. Eleanor was not
interested. They were only a few miles from the houseboat, and she
wondered if Madge could possibly have returned home.

Eleanor stepped out of the little cabin of the launch toward the fore
part of the boat. Drifting down toward them, directly ahead and in their
straight course, was a line of great coal barges, three or four of them
joined together, with a colored man seated on a pile of coal, idly
smoking and paying little heed to where his barges were going. It was
the place of the smaller boats to get out of his way. The barges could
only float with the current.

But the "Sea Gull" was stock still and there was no way to move her.

"Tom!" Eleanor cried quietly, although her face was as white as her
white gown, "if we don't get out of the way those coal barges will sink
us in a few minutes. You will have to hurry to save the 'Sea Gull'."

Tom sprang up from his work at the engine. Eleanor was right. Yet his
motor engine was hopelessly crippled. He could not make it move.

"Get to work with the paddle, Robinson, and paddle for the shore for
dear life," he commanded, seizing the other oar himself. Tom was a
magnificently built fellow, with broad shoulders and muscles as hard as
iron. He never worked harder in his life than he did for the next few
minutes. The girls and Harry Sears watched Tom and George Robinson in
anxious silence. The coal barges were creeping so near that the "Sea
Gull" was in the shadow they cast.

The two boys had to turn the launch half way around with their paddles
before her nose pointed to the land. The man on the coal barge was
shouting hoarse commands when the side of the first barge passed within
six inches of the stern of Tom's launch.

Tom wiped the perspiration from his face. "I think I had better take the
girls to land," he decided. "Then we can find out what is best to be