It was marvelous how the little boat stood up under the bombardment of the Atlantic rollers and the mountains of water that hurled themselves upon her. Harriet was standing in water up to her knees, but, fortunately, every time the boat rolled or plunged, a volume of salt water was hurled out into the sea itself.

In the cabin everything movable was afloat. The passengers in there were nearly drowned at times, but in their fright most of them had forgotten their seasickness. They were clinging to the seats in most instances, screaming with fear. Miss Elting, deciding that her presence was needed in the cabin rather than outside, plunged into the dark hole head-first. Quickly gathering herself together, she did her best to calm and comfort the girls, though every plunge of the boat she expected would be its last. It did not seem possible that the little craft could weather the gale.

Suddenly there came a mighty crash above their heads, followed by a ripping, tearing sound, and above it all sounded the screams of the girls who were fighting their great battle out there in the cockpit of the "Sister Sue."

The girls in the cabin threw themselves into one another's arms, screaming wildly.

"Stop it!" shouted Miss Elting. "Be brave, girls. Remember, you are Camp Girls!"

The cabin doors burst in and a great green wave hurled them the length of the cabin, crushing them against the bulkhead at the far end, the guardian clinging, gasping, nearly drowned, to a rail above the doorway.



CHAPTER XXIII

WAGING A DESPERATE BATTLE

"We're lost!" exclaimed Miss Elting, turning back into the cabin. But she was suddenly attracted by a shout from without.

"Cut away!" screamed Harriet. "Jane, are you there? Tommy!"

"He's gone!" It was Jane's voice that answered in a long, wailing cry.

The water was rapidly receding from the cabin. Miss Elting quickly straightened the girls out. She did not know how seriously they had been hurt, if at all, but after making sure that all within the cabin were alive, the guardian groped her way to the cockpit. Harriet stood braced against the wheel, shouting out her commands, screaming at the top of her voice to make herself heard and understood above the gale.

The guardian staggered over to her.

"Oh, what has happened?" she cried.

"The mast has gone overboard—part of it at least, and—"

"Captain Billy's gone, too! The boom struck and carried him over!" yelled Jane when she had crept near enough to be heard.

"Cut away, I tell you. Here is a hatchet." Harriet had groped in the locker, from which she drew a keen-edged hatchet and handed it to Crazy Jane McCarthy. "You'll have to be quick. We're being swamped. See, we are taking water over the side. Oh, do hurry, Jane!"

"The captain gone!" moaned Miss Elting. "Can nothing be done?"

"No." Harriet's voice was firm. "Unless we work fast we shall all go to the bottom. We must save those on the boat, Miss Elting. But you listen for his voice. Oh, this is terrible!"

The steady whack—whack of the hatchet in the hands of Jane McCarthy came faintly to their ears. Once Jane slipped over the side into the water; but, grasping the life-line to which she was tied, the girl pulled herself back on the deck and set pluckily to work again. It was the wonder of Harriet Burrell that the "Sue" kept afloat at all, for she was more under water than above it, and the seas were breaking over her.

"Please get back and look after the girls. Where is your life-line?" asked Harriet of Miss Elting.

"I threw it off when I went into the cabin."

"Get back! Stay there until I call you, or—"

Harriet did not finish the sentence, but the guardian understood and turned back into the cabin, where she did her best to comfort the panic-stricken Camp Girls.

"Whoop!" shrieked Jane.

The "Sue" righted with a violent jolt. Jane had freed the side of the boat of the rigging which, attached to the broken mast and sail, was holding the craft down and threatening every second to swamp her. Jane crept down into the cockpit, and was about to cut away the stays that held the wreckage, which was now floating astern of the sloop.

"Stop!" commanded Harriet. "Wait till we see what effect it has on us, but stand by to cut away if we see there is peril. Oh, I hope we shall be able to ride it out. That poor captain! He must have been stunned by a blow of the boom. It seems cruel to stand here without lifting a hand to save him. But what can we do? Jane, is there anything you can think of that we can do?"

Crazy Jane shook her head slowly.

"Nothing but to tell his family, if we ever get back to land," was her solemn reply. "But, darlin', we aren't on land ourselves yet, and I doubt me very much if we ever shall be. See the waves breaking over this old tub. How long do you think she will stand it?"

Harriet did not answer at once. She was peering forward into the darkness. Holding up her hand, she noted the direction of the wind.

"Do you see, Jane, the 'Sue' is behaving better! She isn't taking nearly so much water. Do you know what has happened?"

"What is it, darlin'?"

"The wreckage that you cut away is holding the stern and acting as a sea anchor, and it has pulled the bow of the boat around until we are headed right into the gale. I am glad I didn't let you cut loose the wreckage. It may be the very thing that will save us, but I don't know. I wish you would get some one to help you bail out the pit. The water is getting deep in here again, and the cabin is all afloat."

"But more will come in," objected Jane.

"And more will swamp us, first thing we know. You take the wheel. I will bail."

"I'll do it myself, darlin'."

Jane asked Hazel to assist her, and together they slaved until it seemed as if their backs surely would break.

The storm, while not abating any, did not appear to increase in fury. It was severe enough as it was. The seas loomed above the broken craft like huge, black mountains, yet somehow they seemed to break just a few seconds before engulfing her and to divide, passing on either side, but the "Sister Sue" wallowed in a smother of foam, creaking and groaning, giving in every joint, and threatening to fall to pieces with each new twist and turn forced upon her by the writhing seas.

Miss Elting, after having in a measure quieted the girls in the cabin, came out clinging to a rope. She and Harriet held a shouted conversation, after which the guardian returned to the cabin, where there was less danger of being beaten down by huge seas, although one could get fully as wet inside the cabin as on deck.

The hours of the night wore slowly away. The intense impenetrable blackness, the roar and thunder of the sea, the terrible jerking, jolting and hurling beneath them, shook the nerves of the girls, keeping them constantly in a half-dazed condition that perhaps lessened the keenness of their suffering. Harriet and Jane, however, never for a single second relaxed their vigilance, or left a single thing undone that would tend to ease the boat or to contribute to its safety. The binnacle light long since had been extinguished by the water, making it impossible to see the compass to tell which way they were headed. Little good it would have done them to know, either, they being powerless to change their course, or to make any headway at all, save as they drifted with the seas. Harriet hoped they might be drifting toward shore. Instead, they were being slowly carried down the coast and parallel with it.

At last the gray of the early dawn appeared in the east, but it was a "high dawn," with the light first appearing high in the sky, meaning to sailors wind or storm. Harriet did not know the meaning of it, however, though she thought it a most peculiar looking sky. And now, as the light came slowly, they were able to get an idea what the sea in which they had been wallowing all night looked like. It was a fearsome sight. As they gazed their hearts sank within them. Mountains of leaden water rose into the air, then sank out of sight again, and when the "Sue" went into one of those troughs of the sea it was like sinking into a great black pit from which there was no escape. Yet the buoyant hull of the sloop rose every time, shaking the water from her glistening white sides and bending to the oncoming seas preparatory to taking another dizzy dive.

The lower half of the mast was still standing, a ragged stump, the deck itself swept clean of every vestige of wreckage and movable equipment. What troubled Harriet most was the loss of the water cask. The small water tank in the cabin had been hurled to the floor by the pitching of the sloop and its contents spilled. The Meadow-Brook Girl saw that they were going to be without water to drink, a most serious thing, provided they were not drowned before needing something to drink. As she studied the boat, an idea was gradually formed in her mind, a plan outlined that she determined to try to adopt were the wind to go down sufficiently to make the attempt prudent. Harriet called the others to her, and the girls talked it over in all its details for the better part of an hour.

There was nothing to eat on board now, nor did many of the party feel like eating. Tommy, however, found her appetite shortly after daybreak and raised quite a disturbance because there was nothing to be had. She suggested breaking open the doors that led to the chain locker, but of this Harriet would not hear. She did not wish water to get in there, for that appeared to be the one part of the boat that was now free from it, and that really had saved them from going to the bottom. In the meantime the wind did not appear to be abating in the slightest. All that wretched forenoon the majority of the girls, half-dead from fright and exposure, clung desperately to the cushions of the locker seats, wild-eyed and despairing. All that forenoon Harriet Burrell, Jane McCarthy, Tommy, Hazel and Miss Elting stuck to their posts and worked without once pausing to rest. About noon the wind suddenly died out, then began veering in puffs from various quarters of the compass.

"Now, Jane, is our chance," cried Harriet. "The storm is broken, but the seas will be high all the rest of the day. If we can fix up some sort of a sail, we may be able to reach land before long."



CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

When the "Sister Sue" failed to return the previous afternoon, and the storm came on, Mrs. Livingston, greatly alarmed, sent a party of girls with a guardian to the nearest telephone to send word to Portsmouth that the sloop and its passengers were missing. A revenue cutter was sent out to look for them, first, however, having been in communication with the ocean liner the girls had passed by wireless, learning from the captain of the ship of their having sighted the "Sister Sue" and giving the latter's position at the time. This served as a guide for the revenue boat, which steamed through the great seas until daylight.

There were no signs of the missing sloop; but, reasoning that, if the boat was still afloat, it must have been blown down the coast, the revenue boat headed in that direction. It was not until three o'clock in the afternoon, however, that the lookout reported seeing something floating in the far distance, off the starboard bow. A study of this object through the glasses led the captain to turn his cutter in that direction. An hour later he was close enough to see that it was a dismantled boat, and that there were people aboard it.

Full speed ahead was ordered and the revenue boat rapidly drew up. A strange spectacle was revealed to the officers and men of the revenue cutter as she approached close enough to make out details. The dismantled sloop was lying very low in the water, showing that she was in a bad way. To the top of the stump of the mast a staple had been driven and through this a rope run. This rope held a jib, the greater part of which was on the deck because there was not height enough to spread it all. But what there was of the jib was pulling well in the fresh breeze and the sloop was wallowing through the seas, making fair headway toward land, which now was not more than fifteen miles away.

Harriet Burrell, still at the wheel, was giving her full attention to handling the boat, leaving to her companions the task of attracting the attention of the cutter, which, however, had seen the sloop long before the passengers on her had discovered the revenue boat.

The captain of the cutter lay to as close to the sloop as he dared go, then held a megaphone conversation with the survivors. Harriet replied that she thought she would be able to get the boat to shore, but suggested that they take off the other girls. The captain would not listen to Harriet's first proposition. After a perilous passage he finally succeeded in getting a boat's crew aboard the sloop, the skipper himself accompanying the rescue party.

"And you brought this tub through the gale?" he questioned, turning to Harriet after hearing a brief account of the loss of Captain Billy and the consequent experiences of the "Sister Sue's" passengers.

"It was purely good luck, sir," answered Harriet modestly.

"It was something a great deal stronger than luck," answered the captain. "The sea is going down. As soon as it is down enough to be safe I will put you all aboard the cutter."

"Are you going to leave the sloop?" asked Miss Elting.

"No. We want that boat for reasons of our own. We wish to look it over at our leisure. Your sea anchor saved you, that and good seamanship. Miss Burrell, it is a pity you are not a man. You would be commanding a ship in a few years. I think we had better transfer you now. I'm afraid of the sloop."

The transfer was a thrilling experience for the Camp Girls. Several times they narrowly missed being upset and thrown into the sea, but after more than two hours' work everyone had been safely landed on the deck of the revenue boat. Three men were put aboard the sloop, a lifeboat being left with them in case the "Sue" foundered. The revenue cutter then started towing her toward home. It was late in the evening when finally they came to anchor off Camp Wau-Wau. The surf was running so high that it was decided not to put the girls ashore until the following morning, though the "Sue" was cast off from her tow and allowed to drift into the bay. From here her crew rowed ashore and informed the anxious Camp Girls that everyone of their companions was safe.

But the morning brought with it a further surprise. The cabin in which the Meadow-Brook Girls had made their home had wholly disappeared. With it had gone the bar, swept out by the storm, the cabin lying a hopeless, tangled wreck on the shore of the bay. With it, too, had gone ashore a variety of stuff which the officers of the revenue boat examined early that morning. They pronounced the ruined stuff ammunition.

Harriet told of the mysterious box that she had seen carried into the woods. Later in the day this was located and dug up. It was found to be a zinc-lined case, packed with military rifles of old pattern.

On board the "Sister Sue," in the chain locker, was found a complete wireless equipment, together with quite a cargo of rifles and ammunition.

"These guns were meant for business!" remarked the captain of the revenue cutter, as he and another officer stood by superintending the work of four sailors.

"Why, I thought the days of piracy had gone by," remarked Harriet.

"Pi—" gasped Tommy, and turned pale.

"Pirates!" echoed Margery Brown in consternation. "Why, we might have been killed and no one would have known what became of us!"

"Who said anything about pirates!" retorted the revenue captain, smiling.

"Why, you thaid—" began Tommy wonderingly.

"I spoke of 'business,'" came the answer of the man in uniform, "and that was what I meant to say. In these days, in Latin-American countries, revolution appears to be one of the leading forms of business."

"Revolution?" echoed Margery, quickly reviving, while Tommy listened in amazement. "Why, revolutions are romantic; there's nothing awful about 'em."

"Nothing awful," laughed Captain Rupert. "In the countries to the south of us most of the revolutions are very tame affairs, so far as actual fighting goes. The crowd that makes the most noise, whether government or insurgent, usually wins the day. For that matter, I never could understand why blank cartridges wouldn't do as well as the real ammunition in these Latin-American revolutions."

"Yet if these rifles and cartridges were intended for use in a revolution," Harriet broke in, "doesn't it seem odd to land them on this short strip of New Hampshire coast?"

"Not at all odd when you understand the reason," Captain Rupert went on. "These rifles are intended to be used in another projected uprising of the blacks in Cuba. The blacks there are always ready to fight, provided some selfseeking white man offers them the weapons, and a prosperous time, without work, in the event of victory. Such another uprising of the blacks in Cuba has been planned. The secret service men of the Cuban government got wind of the affair and trailed some of the plotters to this country.

"Now, the United States is the place where nearly all of the supplies for these revolutions are bought. So our government, watching, discovered that the arms were being slyly shipped to Portsmouth, instead of being directly shipped from New York to Cuba. It was, of course, quite plain that Portsmouth was the port from which the arms and ammunition were to be shipped. So the cutter that I command was ordered to Portsmouth. As soon as the plotters there found the 'Terrapin' cruising off that port they knew they must find some other way of getting the goods out of the country, for it is against the law to ship arms from this country for use against any other established government.

"So the plotters hit upon a new plan. They engaged the skipper of a regular fishing smack to carry small lots of arms out to sea, there to transfer them to a sloop. Captain Billy was the man selected to receive the arms and ammunition at sea. He brought them in here, hiding them, with the intention of putting out some dark night, making several short trips, and transferring all the rifles and cartridges—eight thousand rifles and three million cartridges, to a small steamer that would be waiting in the offing. The steam vessel would then carry the cargo to Cuba, landing the goods at some secret, appointed place. Captain Billy, as our government learned, was to receive one thousand dollars for his share in the work. It was a bit risky, as he faced prison if caught—as he surely would have been imprisoned had he lived."

"Poor man!" sighed Harriet sympathetically.

"I agree with you," nodded Captain Rupert gravely. "Captain Billy was a good fellow, as men go; but he had passed his fiftieth year with fortune as far away as ever, and he caught at the bait of a thousand dollars, though he knew he was breaking the laws of his country. But he's dead," added the revenue officer, uncovering his head for a moment; "therefore we won't discuss his fault further."

When the "hidden treasure" in the woods was unearthed it proved to be a large consignment of rifles and cartridges. These had been hidden in a cleverly concealed artificial, sod-covered cave in the woods. Its existence had been so well hidden that Camp Wau-Wau girls had scores of times passed over the cave without suspecting its existence.

Before the revenue cutter sailed away the six officers aboard came ashore one evening, taking dinner with the girls, in company with a number of young men, invited from the neighborhood. Afterward until half-past ten o'clock there was a pleasant dance.

All too soon Harriet Burrell and her friends found this vacation trip at an end. Proud of the honors they had won, delighted beyond words with the good times they had had, they left for home the day before the hulk of the "Sister Sue" was taken away, at Mr. McCarthy's order, and sold.

"We are leaving behind us the best time we have ever had," sighed Hazel on the morning of their departure.

"I am sure there are plenty of good times ahead of all of us yet," declared Harriet brightly.

"What I'm going to say, girls," broke in Miss Elting, "is not original, but practical. The driver we've engaged to take our belongings to the station will be due here in ten minutes. If we're not ready for him, he'll charge us extra for waiting."

So the packing was finished, the driver departed with the luggage, and the Meadow-Brook Girls, somewhat wet-eyed, took leave of all at Camp Wau-Wau. Then, Torch Bearer Harriet Burrell leading the way, the four girls and their guardian took the trail.

Yet there was another good time coming, as all our readers will speedily discover when they open the next volume, which is published under the title: "THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ON THE TENNIS COURTS; Or, Winning Out in the Big Tournament."

THE END.