Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/87

 the masts, the engines were stopped, and the Iroquois was allowed to drift before the wind, which had now considerably abated. The boat rolled and wallowed in the sea, but the waves were not now severe enough to be a menace.

“Do you think you’ll find her?” asked Henry, while he and the captain were eating supper.

“If she’s afloat I think we’re quite likely to find her. She’ll drive straight before this wind. But it may take us three or four days yet.”

“Three or four days!” cried Henry, in astonishment. “Why, I had no idea a derelict could float so far or so fast.”

“You see we’re in the Gulf Stream, Henry,” said the captain, “and both wind and tide will drive her. Why, the Iroquois once chased a derelict in the Gulf Stream that floated two hundred and eighty-five miles in four days. This one might go as far. And while we make a big total of miles, we don’t advance so very far in one day along the course of the derelict.”

It looked as though the captain’s prediction of a long search was to be realized, for the second day’s run was as fruitless as the first had been. Once more the cutter drifted with the wind during the hours of darkness, yet all the time she was gaining on the derelict, for, standing high above the water, she would drift twice as fast as a low-lying hulk.