? Oh what is it?" gasped Miss Pennington as Alice fell,
rather than walked down the companionway into the cabin.

"Are we sinking?" demanded Miss Dixon.

"Not at all!" answered Alice, catching her breath, and, with a shake of
her head freeing her face from the salty spray that had drenched her.
"It isn't anything at all."

She determined to make light of it, even though her own heart was
beating like a hammer at the thought of her narrow escape from possible
death.

Alice really did not know whether there was any danger or not from the
fall of the mast. She had often read of such things happening, and she
remembered that the masts were always "cut away." So she supposed, as
long as this was being done, that the proper course was being followed.

"There's no danger at all," she said, speaking more calmly now.

"No danger!" cried Miss Pennington. "Listen to that!"

It was the noise of sailors on deck chopping away the mast-gear.

"Oh, one of those upright sticks, that they hang the sails on, fell
over. Not enough glue on it, I guess," said Alice, calmly.

"Not enough glue!" gasped Paul. "Well, I never--"

"Can't you take a joke?" Alice whispered to him, as she saw that her
minimizing of the accident was having its effect.

"Oh, yes, of course!" Paul exclaimed. "Not enough glue on it--Oh yes!"
and he had to turn away to keep from smiling at the idea of a
mast,--that is the most firmly set of anything on a ship, (being indeed
almost an integral part of it)--the idea of that being stayed with glue
was enough to make almost anyone smile, even in the midst of danger.

The sounds on the deck gradually became more quiet. The danger seemed to
be over for the time being. The moving picture actors and actresses
crowded around Alice to hear her story of the accident. She carefully
avoided mentioning her own peril, but she resolved to properly thank old
Jack later. Just now Alice did not want her father to worry. His throat
was troubling him, because of the amount of salt spray in the air.

On deck Captain Brisco and Jack Jepson took charge of matters until the
wreckage had been cleared away. And a lot of wreckage there was. The
_Mary Ellen_ looked little like the trim, schooner that had left New
York a few weeks before.

Jack Jepson stepped close to the stump of the mainmast. He gave one look
at it, and uttered a single word.

"Rotten!" he exclaimed.

"What's that?" cried Captain Brisco sharply.

"Rotten!" repeat