h.

"Make everything snug!" cried Captain Brisco. "It's coming on to blow
great guns!"

CHAPTER XVIII

GRINDING AWAY

Events aboard the _Mary Ellen_ did not transpire at all slowly. In a
comparatively short space of time she had been converted from an old
hulk into a good sailing vessel, she had put to sea with a party of
moving picture workers, including a sailor accused of mutiny, who had
broken jail. She had been stopped by the English ship, and now the old
schooner was starting to scud before the blast of a hurricane. For the
time being the accusation against Jack Jepson was forgotten.

"Lively now, everyone!" cried Captain Brisco. "When a storm breaks down
here, it isn't any child's play. Double reefs in all sails, and two men
at the wheel. Lash everything fast, pass life-lines, and passengers keep
below."

"Oh, but I want to see the storm!" exclaimed Alice.

"Oh, how can you!" remonstrated Ruth. "It is going to be--awful!"

And indeed, if the evidence of sky and sea, and the moaning of the wind,
were any indication, a great storm was in prospect.

The billows that had been rolling with oily smoothness now began to show
little feathery crests of foam, and they were following one another with
greater quickness, as if impatient to be at their shattering work.

The wind seemed most ominous of all. It was as though it came from afar
off, down behind the horizon line that showed black, with a fringe of
angry yellow in the west. A low, mumbling, roaring, moaning wind it was,
that whistled mournfully through the rigging of the schooner, and howled
down the companionways.

"Oh dear!" sighed Ruth, as she slipped her arm into that of her sister,
and started for their cabin. "Come on, Alice. I'm afraid!"

"Nonsense! What of? Nothing has happened--yet."

"No, but there is going to be a terrible storm!"

"And I just love a blow. I've never seen one at sea, and, as this may be
the only chance I'll get, I'm not going to miss it. Stay up with me,
Ruth. Don't be like those sillies, and go below," and she motioned to
Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon who were scurrying for cover, as the wind
and the sea increased.

"Well, I'll stay up a little while," agreed Ruth. "But I--I'm afraid all
the same."

"Nonsense!" cried Alice gaily. "We have a good ship under us. It went
through a mutiny, and I guess it can weather a storm."

"That's just the point--can it?" asked Ruth in a low voice.

"What do you mean?" Ali