"Do, please, go a little slower, Tom," begged Eleanor. "We shall never find Madge at the rate you are traveling."
It was morning on the river. The river craft were moving up and down. Steamboats carrying freight and heavy barges loaded with coal made it necessary for Tom to steer carefully.
The "Sea Gull" slowed down. Every now and then Tom would put in alongside another boat to inquire if a girl in a rowboat had been seen. No one gave any news of Madge.
After gliding up the Rappahannock for ten miles, and finding no trace of the lost girl, Tom decided she must have rowed down stream instead of up. So the "Sea Gull" turned and went down the river.
The launch's engine was not in the best of humors. It may not have liked being roused so early in the morning, and David Brewster was not by to tend it under Tom's careful directions. Every now and then the gasoline engine would emit a strange, whirring noise. Harry Sears, who was watching the engine, heard it lose a beat in its regular rhythmical throb. "See here, Tom," he called suddenly, "something is wrong with this machinery. I can't tell what it is."
Harry had spoken just in time. The motor launch stopped stock still in the middle of the river. Tom flew to his beloved engine. "Don't worry," he urged cheerfully, "I'll have her started again in a few seconds."
Tom kept doing mysterious things to the disgruntled engine. The two boys and Lillian watched him in fascinated silence. Eleanor was not interested. They were only a few miles from the houseboat, and she wondered if Madge could possibly have returned home.
Eleanor stepped out of the little cabin of the launch toward the fore part of the boat. Drifting down toward them, directly ahead and in their straight course, was a line of great coal barges, three or four of them joined together, with a colored man seated on a pile of coal, idly smoking and paying little heed to where his barges were going. It was the place of the smaller boats to get out of his way. The barges could only float with the current.
But the "Sea Gull" was stock still and there was no way to move her.
"Tom!" Eleanor cried quietly, although her face was as white as her white gown, "if we don't get out of the way those coal barges will sink us in a few minutes. You will have to hurry to save the 'Sea Gull'."