"Russ hasn't come back," volunteered Alice, who almost always spoke ahead of her sister.
"He's out there!" Ruth found voice to say, "and Captain Brisco isn't going to wait for him."
"You can't hold a ship still on the ocean, and a storm coming up!" the commander cried, as though to justify himself. "We've got to run for it. It would be madness now to lay to."
"But we can't desert Russ and Mr. Sneed!" cried the manager. "I thought he was coming in. What shall we do? We must do something! I shouldn't have asked him to risk it!"
The schooner was rapidly forging ahead, even under reefed sails, so powerful was the wind.
"We could work around," said Jack Jepson, who had come up on deck after seeing the first mate comfortably bestowed in his berth. "We could work around and----"
"Who's in charge of this ship; you or me?" snapped Captain Brisco.
"You are, of course," was the quiet answer.
"Well then, have the goodness to keep still and let me manage matters. I'm giving orders--not you!"
Poor Jack slunk back, smarting under the undeserved rebuke.
"I don't care who is in command!" cried Mr. Pertell. "This is my ship and you're under my orders, Captain Brisco. I order you to pick up that motorboat!"
"And I tell you we can't do it! They've got to come to us, we can't go to them. They're not dependent on the wind as we are. They can travel any direction they like, and they'll have to head for us."
"But we must make some effort to find them!" cried the manager. "It would be wicked--criminal not to."
"Look here!" cried Captain Brisco. "You are the owner of this schooner, it is true, and as such you are my superior, but the law gives me supreme command of this craft at sea, unless I'm dead, or otherwise deposed. And I tell you I won't risk all these lives by trying to beat back in the teeth of this wind, to pick up a motorboat. It would be worse than criminal--worse than wicked to do it. It would endanger all on board!"
There was some logic in that. Even Mr. Pertell, exercised as he was by the threatened danger to Russ, could appreciate that.
"But we must do something," the manager repeated.
"I'm doing all I can," Captain Brisco replied. "I'll shorten sail down to the minimum; that will keep us before the wind, and out of the trough of the sea! More I can't do. We must depend on them to pick us up. They ought to be able to do it. You told me Dalwood could manage a boat."