RUBY LIGHT.
By BURKE JENKINS.
(This interesting story was commenced in No. 120 of Nick Carter Stories. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or the publishers.)
CHAPTER XIV.
THE FOG LIFTS.
“I do like a man like that!� bubbled old Steve delightedly, as he dropped a box of tools at my feet.
I found no words in reply, so we two went right at the repairing, and the job was really simple enough.
The engine, a four-cylinder affair of the “heavy-duty� type, was bedded between the two masts. This arrangement, of course, necessitated a piercing of the foot of the mainmast for the shaft as it ran aft to the screw.
Now, what had happened was simply that, in the strain before the actual break at the deck, the bronze shaft had been thrown out of line. So it bound against the bearing through the mast.
It was but a quarter hour’s work to saw above and below the bend. I couldn’t get the shaft to exact trueness, of course; but the line from engine coupling to shaft log ran fair enough, so that, before a half hour was up, I sent old Steve to deck.
Then followed the jangle of the bell right alongside me, and I started the engine.
There came immediately a gurgle along the planking. The Ruby Light was once more under way.