Then he thought of the storm that had wrecked the Kangaroo and this brought the possible fate of his father and mother to his mind. He took out, and read over again, for perhaps the fiftieth time, the clipping from the newspaper that had given him his first hint of the bad news. There were one or two other clippings from other papers, telling the same story, and a later one, confirming the first dispatch.
“Poor dad and mother!” sighed our hero. “I’m coming to you as fast as I can. Oh! if only there was some way of reaching you by wireless! But, even if the wireless was on their vessel at first,” he mused, “it wouldn’t work after the wreck. I’ll just have to wait.”
He stretched out, but it was some time before he got to sleep, and his thoughts were rather sad as they dwelt on the possible fate of his parents.
“Oh, pshaw!” he finally exclaimed, half aloud. “This won’t do! I’ve got to be more cheerful.” Then he changed his current of thought to the good times he had had at Elmwood Hall, and soon he felt himself dozing off, as he recalled the merry midnight suppers he and his chums had partaken of.
“And when this trip is over I’m going back there, and have some more good times,” he whispered.
Tom went up on the bridge after breakfast, to find Captain Steerit looking critically at the barometer.
“Anything wrong?” asked our hero.
“No, not yet. And yet it has fallen a little. I don’t just like it, but otherwise the weather is good. I don’t see any signs of a storm, so I guess I won’t worry. How did you sleep?”
“Pretty good.”
“Do you mind the motion much?”