“She’s safe now!” cried Ned, in a tone of relief. “I’m glad they made it all right. I wonder how they got crippled.”
“Let me take the glasses a minute, Ned,” requested Harry.
“Can you see what’s the matter with her?” queried Jimmie.
“Yes,” replied the boy, with the glasses to his eye. “Von Kluck was right. It looks as if the rudder stock is twisted and bent badly out of shape. As the stern lifts I can see the blades of the propeller all right, but the rudder seems to be missing.”
“The Anne of Melbourne,” mused Ned. “I wonder now what that vessel is doing away off up here. If they had a cargo destined for an English port they should have been much farther south.”
“You don’t suppose the captain lost his reckoning and got this far out of his course, do you?” suggested Jimmie.
“I don’t know,” replied Ned. Then turning to Captain von Kluck the lad continued: “Captain, what do you think about it?”
“Mit der var doing so many tings, I don’d know what to tink!”
“I can see men moving about on deck now, apparently clearing up the recent damage,” stated Harry. “And I see a Boy Scout, too!”
“No!” objected Jimmie. “Don’t say that! I don’t want any more Boy Scouts mixed up in this! It isn’t fair!”