Tom sprang up from his work at the engine. Eleanor was right. Yet his motor engine was hopelessly crippled. He could not make it move.
"Get to work with the paddle, Robinson, and paddle for the shore for dear life," he commanded, seizing the other oar himself. Tom was a magnificently built fellow, with broad shoulders and muscles as hard as iron. He never worked harder in his life than he did for the next few minutes. The girls and Harry Sears watched Tom and George Robinson in anxious silence. The coal barges were creeping so near that the "Sea Gull" was in the shadow they cast.
The two boys had to turn the launch half way around with their paddles before her nose pointed to the land. The man on the coal barge was shouting hoarse commands when the side of the first barge passed within six inches of the stern of Tom's launch.
Tom wiped the perspiration from his face. "I think I had better take the girls to land," he decided. "Then we can find out what is best to be done."
"Your automobile boat's busted, ain't it?" inquired a friendly voice as the entire party, except Tom, piled out of the launch to the land.
A colored boy of about eighteen was standing on the river bank grinning at them. He held a piece of juicy watermelon in his hand.
Eleanor and Lillian eyed it hungrily. They suddenly remembered that they had had no breakfast.
"The young ladies had better come up to my ole missus's place?" the boy invited hospitably. "They look kind of petered out. I spect it will take some time to fix up your boat."
The entire company of young people looked up beyond the sloping river bank to the farm country back of it. There, on the crest of a small hill, was a beautiful old Virginia homestead, painted white, with green shutters and a broad, comfortable porch in front of it. It looked like home to Eleanor. "Yes; suppose we go up there to rest, Lillian," pleaded Eleanor. "If Tom can't get his engine mended, we can row back to the houseboat in a little while."
David Brewster and Phyllis Alden had not waited quietly on the "Merry Maid" while Tom and his launch party went out in search of Madge.