"There's no saying how far out to sea Mike went before turning back——"
"Hark!" gasped Alvin, almost leaping from his seat.
And then through the soft still air they heard the call:
"Arrah, now, ye spalpeens! Come to me arms and obsarve me give an imitation of a gintleman starving to death!"
CHAPTER XXIX
Marooned
To say the least, Mike Murphy was much disquieted when the engine of the Deerfoot stopped dead and the boat began drifting in the darkness, no one could say whither. Not knowing the right thing to do, he seized hold of the fly-wheel, swung it back and forth and part way round, and then suddenly let go, as he had seen Alvin Landon do many times. Since there was no fuel in the tank, it need not be said that this effort was fruitless.
"Whew!" he exclaimed at last as he straightened up; "if there was somebody here to tell me the right thing to do I'd do the same mighty quick, but this part of my eddycation was niglicted, as me grandmither said when the taicher asked her if she knowed the alphabet.
"I 'spose now that there be lots of handles which if I turned 'em the right way would start this old thing, but if I swung 'em the wrong way—as I'd be sure to do—I'd bust her b'iler. So I'll not try."