The lower half of the mast was still standing, a ragged stump, the deck itself swept clean of every vestige of wreckage and movable equipment. What troubled Harriet most was the loss of the water cask. The small water tank in the cabin had been hurled to the floor by the pitching of the sloop and its contents spilled. The Meadow-Brook Girl saw that they were going to be without water to drink, a most serious thing, provided they were not drowned before needing something to drink. As she studied the boat, an idea was gradually formed in her mind, a plan outlined that she determined to try to adopt were the wind to go down sufficiently to make the attempt prudent. Harriet called the others to her, and the girls talked it over in all its details for the better part of an hour.
There was nothing to eat on board now, nor did many of the party feel like eating. Tommy, however, found her appetite shortly after daybreak and raised quite a disturbance because there was nothing to be had. She suggested breaking open the doors that led to the chain locker, but of this Harriet would not hear. She did not wish water to get in there, for that appeared to be the one part of the boat that was now free from it, and that really had saved them from going to the bottom. In the meantime the wind did not appear to be abating in the slightest. All that wretched forenoon the majority of the girls, half-dead from fright and exposure, clung desperately to the cushions of the locker seats, wild-eyed and despairing. All that forenoon Harriet Burrell, Jane McCarthy, Tommy, Hazel and Miss Elting stuck to their posts and worked without once pausing to rest. About noon the wind suddenly died out, then began veering in puffs from various quarters of the compass.
"Now, Jane, is our chance," cried Harriet. "The storm is broken, but the seas will be high all the rest of the day. If we can fix up some sort of a sail, we may be able to reach land before long."
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION
When the "Sister Sue" failed to return the previous afternoon, and the storm came on, Mrs. Livingston, greatly alarmed, sent a party of girls with a guardian to the nearest telephone to send word to Portsmouth that the sloop and its passengers were missing. A revenue cutter was sent out to look for them, first, however, having been in communication with the ocean liner the girls had passed by wireless, learning from the captain of the ship of their having sighted the "Sister Sue" and giving the latter's position at the time. This served as a guide for the revenue boat, which steamed through the great seas until daylight.
There were no signs of the missing sloop; but, reasoning that, if the boat was still afloat, it must have been blown down the coast, the revenue boat headed in that direction. It was not until three o'clock in the afternoon, however, that the lookout reported seeing something floating in the far distance, off the starboard bow. A study of this object through the glasses led the captain to turn his cutter in that direction. An hour later he was close enough to see that it was a dismantled boat, and that there were people aboard it.
Full speed ahead was ordered and the revenue boat rapidly drew up. A strange spectacle was revealed to the officers and men of the revenue cutter as she approached close enough to make out details. The dismantled sloop was lying very low in the water, showing that she was in a bad way. To the top of the stump of the mast a staple had been driven and through this a rope run. This rope held a jib, the greater part of which was on the deck because there was not height enough to spread it all. But what there was of the jib was pulling well in the fresh breeze and the sloop was wallowing through the seas, making fair headway toward land, which now was not more than fifteen miles away.
Harriet Burrell, still at the wheel, was giving her full attention to handling the boat, leaving to her companions the task of attracting the attention of the cutter, which, however, had seen the sloop long before the passengers on her had discovered the revenue boat.