"I shouldn't wonder if there was a storm brewing," Captain Westfield said. "Creatures in the sea, as well as on the land, seem to have a weather instinct which tells them when a serious change of weather is coming. It looks bright all around, but it seems to me I can feel a kind of heaviness in the air that only comes before a storm."
Noon came but the sky remained clear and uncloudy.
"I guess you missed the weather, for once, Captain," Charley observed, "but I think we might as well start for home, anyway. It's our last day and we are not catching enough to pay us to stay out any longer."
His companions were willing so the anchor was hauled aboard and the engine started up.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ACCIDENT.
Both Charley and Walter had by this time become quite familiar with their little engine and when trouble with it occurred, as it sometimes did, it generally took them but a short time to locate what was wrong and fix it.
They had covered perhaps half the distance back to the inlet when the steady throb, throb of the engine changed suddenly to a whirling roar. Charley hastily threw the switch, shutting off the spark, and the big fly wheel instantly ceased its wild revolutions.
"Something has come loose," he announced. "Hand me that wrench, Walt. The shaft must have come loose to make the engine turn up at that speed."