“Saboteurs may have cut the hawser.”
“The big mooring rope has been severed!” Louise exclaimed a moment later. “I can see the frayed end!”
Penny came about again, tacking in closer to the drifting vessel.
“That certainly looks like the barge Carl Oaks was hired to guard,” she declared with a worried frown. “Can you read the numbers, Lou?”
“519-9870.”
“Then it is his barge!”
“He must have deserted his post again.”
“In any case that barge is a great hazard to other vessels,” Penny declared, deeply troubled. “Not even a signal light on the bow or stern!”
“Oughtn’t we to notify the Coast Guards?”
“We should, but while we’re reaching a telephone, the barge may ram another boat. Why not board her and put up signal lights first? In this fog one can’t see a vessel many yards ahead.”