Less than a mile from Cougar Bay, the _Waterbug's_ engine gave a few
premonitory gasps and died. Barlow descended to the engine room, hooked
up the trouble lamp, and sought for the cause. He could not find it.
Stella could hear him muttering profanity, turning the flywheel over,
getting an occasional explosion.
An hour passed. Dark of the Pit descended, shrouding the lake with a
sable curtain, close-folded, impenetrable. The dead stillness of the day
vanished before a hot land breeze, and Stella, as she felt the launch
drift, knew by her experience on the lake that they were moving
offshore. Presently this was confirmed, for out of the black wall on the
west, from which the night wind brought stifling puffs of smoke, there
lifted a yellow effulgence that grew to a red glare as the boat drifted
out. Soon that red glare was a glowing line that rose and fell, dipping
and rising and wavering along a two-mile stretch, a fiery surf beating
against the forest.
Down in the engine room Barlow finally located the trouble, and the
motor took up its labors, spinning with a rhythmic chatter of valves.
The man came up into the pilot house, wiping the sweat from his grimy
face.
"Gee, I'm sorry, Mrs. Fyfe," he said. "A gas-engine man would 'a' fixed
that in five minutes. Took me two hours to find out what was wrong.
It'll be a heck of a job to fetch Cougar Bay now."
But by luck Barlow made his way back, blundering fairly into the landing
at the foot of the path that led to the bungalow, as if the cruiser knew
the way to her old berth.
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