ngly down at
them in great perplexity, no doubt, as to what manner of craft it was
that they had so narrowly escaped sending to the bottom. For had the
vessel even grazed the Flying Fish, the small boat would have been
annihilated without those on board the liner even feeling a tremor. It
would have been just such a tragedy as happens frequently to the
fishing dories on the foggy Newfoundland banks.

"Wh-ew!" gasped Merritt, sinking down on a locker. "That was a narrow
escape if you like it!"

"I don't like it," remarked Tubby sententiously, mopping his forehead,
on which beads of cold perspiration had stood out while their
destruction had seemed inevitable. So thoroughly unnerved were the
lads, in fact, by their experience that it was some time before they
could do anything more than sit limply on the lockers while the Flying
Fish rolled aimlessly with an uncontrolled helm.

"Come on," said Tubby at length; "we've got to rouse ourselves. In the
first place, I've got an idea," he went on briskly. "I've been
thinking over that gasoline stoppage, and the more I think of it the
more I am inclined to believe that there's something queer about it.
It's worth looking into, anyhow."

"You mean you think there may be some fuel in the tank, after all?"
asked Merritt, looking up.

"It's possible. Have you tried the little valve forward of the
carburetor?"

"Why, no," rejoined Merritt; "but I hardly think--"

"It wouldn't be the first time a carburetor had fouled, particularly
after what we went through in that squall," remarked Tubby. "It's
worth trying, anyhow."

He bent over the valve he had referred to, which was in the gasoline
feed pipe, just forward of the carburetor, and placed there primarily
for draining the tank when it was necessary.

"Look here!" he yelled, with a sudden shout of excitement. "No," he
cried the next moment, "I don't want to waste it--but when I opened the
valve a stream of gasoline came out. There's plenty of it. That
stoppage is in the carburetor. Oh, what a bunch of idiots we've been!"

"Better sound the tank," suggested Merritt; "what came out of the valve
might just be an accumulation in the pipe."

"Not much," rejoined the other, "it came out with too much force for
that, I tell you. It was flowing from the tank, all right."

"We'll soon find out," proclaimed Merritt. "Give me the sounding stick
out of that locker, Hiram."

Armed with the stick, Merritt rapidly unscre