They had as much fun over the regular lunch as they had had over the “temporary” one, as Walter and the boys designated the first meal, and the afternoon waned pleasantly.
“I hope we shall get to Riverhead before the storm,” observed Cora, as she came back to take her place at the wheel again, a post she had abandoned while she helped the girls put away the dishes and what was left of the food.
“What storm?” asked Paul.
Cora indicated a bank of sullen-looking clouds in the west. They were sufficiently ominous to cause Cora to speed up the motor a bit, and to request her brothers and his chums to see to the side curtains.
“We ought to get in long before that breaks,” Jack declared.
But he did not count on the speedy approach of the storm, nor on the fact that the boat ran into a shallow section of the river, where there grew long grass which got entangled in the propeller.
Though the Corbelbes managed to force her way through this patch of “seaweed” as Jack called it, when she emerged into free water again the motor could hardly turn the screw. It was necessary to reverse the engine, to unwind the grass, and even then some had to be pulled away with the boat hook—no easy task.
And then, when they were once more under full speed, the storm came down with a rush and a roar, with blinding sheets of rain, with a wind that caught the boat broadside, where the rubber curtains made a wide sail area, and heeled her over at no small angle.
With the rain came thunder and lightning, sufficiently fierce and loud for a time to terrify at least Belle, who was the most nervous of the girls.
“I can hardly see to steer,” said Cora, peering out of the rain-drenched windows of the cabin.