Once more he bravely tried to work his way to the engine. He could not reach the gasolene cock from where he was. He cast a look ahead, and saw that his boat was approaching, at swift speed, a knot of other boats, the steersmen of which were too confused to know what to do. Some were getting out of the way, but others were in the direct course of the burning craft.
"What can I do?" Dick asked himself in a hoarse whisper. "I must stop the boat, or steer it out of the way—but how?"
He could neither reach the engine nor the wheel, for the fire was now raging in bow and stern. He stood in a little cockpit amidships, where, for the moment, there were no flames.
Dick looked desperately about him. Nearer and nearer his craft shot to the boats containing girls in their light summer dresses. Once the burning motor boat touched the craft in which the young women were their clothes would envelop them in flames.
"I must stop my boat!" thought Dick, desperately.
Then a brilliant idea came to him. He gave one look at the whirring fly-wheel of the motor. Then, seizing a heavy monkey wrench he opened the jaws and fastened it on a boat hook, so that it stood at right angles to it. Then he thrust the wrench right into the fly-wheel.
There was a grinding, crashing sound, and, a moment later, the whizzing wheel spokes had caught the wrench, and, with resistless force, had driven it through the bottom of the craft.
Dick had scuttled his own boat!