"We're going to put back," insisted Dick, and the captain put the wheel over, the Albatross swinging around in a big circle.
Mr. Barton had not exaggerated the strength of the storm. If it had been hard work scudding along before it, aided by the wind, while the screw threshed the water to foam, it was exceedingly difficult to stem the howling wind that whipped the big green waves into spume.
But Dick's yacht was a gallant craft, and she staggered back over the course she had just covered, making better work at it than many a larger vessel would have done, for she was not so high in the water as to offer much resistance to the wind.
On either side of the rail, while a lookout was stationed in the bow, the boys watched for a sight of Tim. They looked for a black speck amid the foam of the waters, but saw none. When they had gone back far enough to cover the point where the newsboy had been missed, Dick gave the order to swing around again, and run before the storm. The yacht rode more easily at once, and she was not boarded by so many smashing seas.
Even then Dick would not give up, but he and the others peered forward into the mist of rain with eager eyes, which, every now and then, were blinded by the salt spray.
They ate dinner in gloomy silence, occasionally some one making a remark about Tim's good qualities, and his jolly disposition.
"It makes me feel like turning back, and not making the trip," said Dick, "to have bad luck like this at the very start."
"It is too bad," agreed Beeby, "but maybe he'll be picked up by some other vessel, and saved. If he went overboard he might have grabbed something, and be floating. We could hardly see him in the rough water."
"Let's look on deck and see if any life buoys are missing, or anything else gone that he might have taken overboard with him," suggested Frank, and another hasty search was made. But it only increased the uneasy feeling, since none of the articles was missing, and gloom once more settled down.
The storm did not abate in violence all the rest of that day, and the boys sought their bunks with the yacht rolling and tossing on a heaving sea.