This was the beginning of a storm which endured through the night, and which was to have a curious influence on the strange events which lay in the Bungalow Boys' future.
CHAPTER II.
LOST OVERBOARD!
"This is the worst yet!"
Tom fairly shouted the words at Jack, who stood by him on the bridge of the storm-tossed Sea Ranger. The younger lad had just come from below, where he had deluged the engines with oil. He had also gone over them carefully, although the way the little craft was pitching made the job a difficult one. But Jack knew that the safety of the boat might depend on the way the engines kept at work.
"I never saw anything like it," yelled Jack, forming his hands into a funnel to make his voice carry. "Is it letting up at all?"
"Not a bit. It is worse, if anything."
Tom peered into the gloom ahead. But he could see nothing but angry breakers, their white tops whipped off by the furious wind and sent scattering as they formed. Both boys wore oilskins and sou'westers. The spray had drenched them till their garments shone in the gleam of the binnacle lamp.
"Better switch on the side and head lights," observed Tom presently.
He turned a button, and the red port light and its green companion on the starboard side were presently gleaming out. Above them, on the short mast with which the Sea Ranger was equipped, there beamed a white light, and another lantern of the same variety now shone out astern. All were lighted by electricity, furnished from a dynamo in the engine room, so that no matter how hard the wind blew, or how high the spray flew, there was no danger of their being extinguished.