Page:Fairview Boys at Lighthouse Cove.djvu/111

Rh the storm was at its height the smaller boat might have been sunk. But the storm had passed, and the ocean only rose and fell in a gentle swell.

"What brought the two together?" asked Bob.

"The wind and the tide, I guess," said Frank. Later he learned that objects in water have a sort of attraction for one another, as pieces of metal are attracted to a magnet.

If you will take a basin of water, and scatter some pieces of wood or cork on top, and then take care not to move or stir the water, you will find, in a few minutes, that the pieces have drawn themselves together. Sometimes only one or two will do this, and again the whole number will form a mass to float about.

It is this which causes masses of driftwood to float in the form of miniature rafts, and some scientists claim that often ships, which are not under their own power, are thus drawn together in a collision. Some even go so far as to say that a big war vessel, for instance, even in motion, will draw another vessel, also in motion, toward it. And not long ago a collision of a British warship and a merchant vessel was said to be due to this cause.

But the boys did not stop to think of that then—indeed they had heard nothing of it.

All they knew was that their motor boat was up against a much larger and more substantial vessel, and they were glad of this, for they felt, in case of a storm, that they could take refuge on the big schooner.

"How do you s'pose it happened that she got here?" asked Sammy, motioning toward the ship.

"Is there anybody aboard?" was Bob's question.

"Let's go and see," suggested Frank, and this seemed most practical of all.

It was easy to board the schooner from the rail of the motor