Page:Dave Porter and his Classmates.djvu/290

266 "We are not hurting you. If you don't shut up we'll land you on one of the islands and leave you there."

"Oh!" exclaimed the third girl, whose name was Sadie Fillmore, and then she nearly fainted from fright.

The motor boat was rounding a point of the cove when there came an unexpected scraping on the bottom. Then suddenly the craft slid up on a sandbar and careened to one side, almost tumbling some of the occupants into the water.

"Shut her off!" yelled Poole, and in alarm Link Merwell stopped the engine. The girls screamed and clung to each other in terror. A little water entered the boat and this added to their fright.

"Now, see what you did!" cried Nat Poole. "We are on a sandbar."

"It wasn't my fault—I wasn't steering," answered Link Merwell.

"I told you to run slow, but you kept piling on the speed."

"Are we go—going to—to sink?" faltered Mary.

"Sink? We can't sink. We are high and dry on a sandbar," grumbled Merwell.

"Oh, I am so thankful!"

"Well, I'm not."

"But we aren't dry—the water is all around us," protested Vera.