Fred now made a discovery, a not unpleasant one.
"The wind is dying down!" he cried. "Say, it doesn't begin to blow the way it did."
"If I could get this pesky engine started, we might get home to-night, after all," Larry muttered.
Polly and Margy exchanged startled glances. They had expected to go home as a matter of course. But, now they stopped to think of it, if the engine refused to start, how were they to get back to Sunrise Beach?
"Get home to-night!" Jess echoed. "Oh, what will we do if we can't get home?"
"If we had a wireless, we could get help," said Artie.
"Never heard of a wireless on a plain motor boat," Larry declared. "Hardly ever go out of sight of land. Just the same, if I had a set and could work it, we might do better than we're doing now."
"Why!" said Polly, with a startled cry. "Look! We can't see— What is it?"
Something soft and dense and gray was fast closing in around them.