Alice was wildly looking around for a sight of the smaller craft. She had seen it just before the sail fell, but now there was nothing about the schooner but a bare waste of waters.
She knew enough about the technical side of moving pictures to realize that for some time, it had been too dark to take any film. Russ must have known that, too, and would have started back for the schooner. But if he had, where was he now?
Alice asked herself that question as she looked around.
"You must wait for him!" cried Ruth.
"Who? What's this?" demanded Mr. Pertell, for he had been hurrying to and fro, making sure none of the members of his company had been injured in the slight accident.
"Russ hasn't come back," volunteered Alice, who almost always spoke ahead of her sister.
"He's out there!" Ruth found voice to say, "and Captain Brisco isn't going to wait for him."
"You can't hold a ship still on the ocean, and a storm coming up!" the commander cried, as though to justify himself. "We've got to run for it. It would be madness now to lay to."
"But we can't desert Russ and Mr. Sneed!" cried the manager. "I thought he was coming in. What shall we do? We must do something! I shouldn't have asked him to risk it!"
The schooner was rapidly forging ahead, even under reefed sails, so powerful was the wind.