Page:Dick Hamilton's Steam Yacht.djvu/162

144 "Put back!" exclaimed the commander. "It's hardly possible in the teeth of this wind. The gale is increasing, and our only hope is to run before it. We would barely move trying to make headway against it."

"We're going to put back," insisted Dick, and the captain put the wheel over, the Albatross swinging around in a big circle.

Mr. Barton had not exaggerated the strength of the storm. If it had been hard work scudding along before it, aided by the wind, while the screw threshed the water to foam, it was exceedingly difficult to stem the howling wind that whipped the big green waves into spume.

But Dick's yacht was a gallant craft, and she staggered back over the course she had just covered, making better work at it than many a larger vessel would have done, for she was not so high in the water as to offer much resistance to the wind.

On either side of the rail, while a lookout was stationed in the bow, the boys watched for a sight of Tim. They looked for a black speck amid the foam of the waters, but saw none. When they had gone back far enough to cover the point where the newsboy had been missed, Dick gave the order to swing around again, and run before the storm. The yacht rode more easily at once, and she was not boarded by so many smashing seas.

Even then Dick would not give up, but he and