ly along.
"Now we're all right, Sue!" said Bunny. "Stop your yelling! We're not
going to sink!"
"How do you know?" she asked. "We bumped into something, and maybe
there's a hole, and the water's coming in, and----"
Just then Mr. and Mrs. Brown came running up on deck, followed by Uncle
Tad and Captain Ross. The old seaman, with an anxious look around,
called to Bunker Blue.
"What happened? Did some one run into us?"
"Felt more as if we ran into something," Bunker answered. "But I didn't
see so much as a canoe."
"We struck something under water, of that I'm sure," said Captain Ross.
"We'd better take a look. We're near shore, anyhow, and it won't take
long to row over if we have to," he added. "But we surely did hit
something."
"Maybe it was a whale," suggested Sue.
"Whales don't come up in the bay. They're too big and fat," declared
Bunny.
"Well, maybe then it was a shark," the little girl went on. "They're not
so fat."
Captain Ross and Mr. Brown hurried below deck again, but presently came
up, and the seaman said:
"We can't find anything wrong below--no leak or anything. We may have
hit a big, submerged log or piece of a wreck. Start the motor again,
Bunker, and we'll see if that's all right."
The gasolene engine was not damaged, but something else was wrong. As
soon as the machinery started there was a trembling and throbbing
throughout the whole boat, but she did not move ahead.
"I see what the matter is!" said Captain Ross. "The propeller is broken.
It hit something."
"Oh, can't we go to Christmas Tree Cove?" asked Sue.
"We'll get there somehow," answered Captain Ross. "But the propeller is
surely broken."
And so it proved. The propeller, you know, is something like an electric
fan. It whirls around underwater and pushes the boat ahead. The
propeller on the _Fairy_ had struck a floating log and had been broken,
as they found out later.
"If we can't go by means of the engine we can sail," remarked Captain
Ross, when it was found that the boat would not move an inch, no matter
how fast the motor whirled around. "Hoist the sail, Bunker. We'll get
Bunny Brown and his sister Sue to Christmas Tree Cove yet! Hoist the
sail!"
"Oh, it's lots of fun to sail!" cried Bunny.
"I like it better than motoring!" added Sue, who was no longer yelling.
Soon the white sail was hoisted, and, as the wind blew, the _Fairy_
slipped easily along through the water. There was no "jiggle" now, as
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