"I wonder if we are going to have a blow," he soliloquized. "It more than half looks like it."

About quarter of an hour later the breeze died out utterly. This was a bad sign, and the boy prudently lowered the jib and took a couple of reefs in the mainsail.

Presently came a low rumble of thunder from the southeast, and the sky grew darker and darker. There was no longer any doubt that a severe thunderstorm, preceded possibly by a squall, was close at hand.

Unwilling to take any risks in a boat not his own, Ralph lowered the mainsail entirely. Hardly had he done so when a fierce wind swept up the lake--a wind that presently raised itself almost to a hurricane.

The lightning began to flash all around him, followed by crash after crash of thunder. The water was churned up in great violence, and he was compelled to crouch low in the craft lest he be swept overboard and drowned.

Driven by the wind, the boat moved across the lake, until Ralph grew fearful that she would be driven up on the rocks and made a complete wreck.

At the risk of losing some canvas, he let out the mainsail a bit and steered from the sh.o.r.e.

The rain came down by the bucketful, and it did not take much to soak him to the skin. There was no way of protecting himself; he must take it as it came. Fortunately it was warm, so he did not suffer so much as he might otherwise have done.

A half-hour pa.s.sed, and Ralph was just congratulating himself that the worst was over, when a cry came out of the gloom to his left.

He strained his eyes in the direction, and after a few moments caught sight of an immense hay barge bearing down upon him. The hay barge had been towed by a steam tug, but the rope had parted, and the barge was now drifting at the mercy of the wind and current.

There was a man on the hay barge, thoroughly frightened, and it was he who was crying for a.s.sistance.

"Hullo, there! What's the matter?" cried Ralph, as he steered clear of the moving ma.s.s, for the hay barge was loaded to the water's edge.

"Help me!" cried the man. "I am all alone on this barge."

"Where is the tug?"

"I don't know. I fancy she struck on a rock, for we lost our reckoning, and ran too close to sh.o.r.e."

"I don't see how I can help you," returned Ralph. "My boat won't budge that big barge."

"Then take me on board, will you?" returned the man, with a shiver. "I ain't used to being out in the wind and rain."

"Yes, I'll take you in. Wait till I run up behind."

As best he could, Ralph swung his own craft around, and came up under the stern of the hay barge. The man ran from the side, and lowered himself onto the bow seat.

"There! I'm all right now," he said, as he stumbled back to Ralph's side.

"What a beastly storm!" he went on.

"It is. What are you going to do about the barge?"

"I don't care what becomes of her," growled the man. "I was only a pa.s.senger on the tug, and went on the barge for fun. Let the captain pick her up as best he can."

"But you want to find the tug, don't you?" asked Ralph, in some surprise.

"Not if you will put me ash.o.r.e. Where are you bound?"

"Westville."

"That will suit me first rate. Take me there, and I'll pay you the pa.s.sage money instead of the tug captain."

"I'll take you there without pay," said Ralph.

At that moment a steam whistle sounded close at hand, and presently they beheld the steam tug, with the captain on the forward deck, gazing anxiously ahead.

"There she is!" cried the man Ralph had picked up.

"We'll call to the captain, and let him know where his hay barge is,"

replied Ralph.

He accordingly hailed those on the steam tug. Soon the craft was close beside him.

"Your barge is off in that direction," said Ralph, pointing with his hand.

"And I am here, captain, and going to stay here," put in Ralph's pa.s.senger.

"No more hay barges for me."

"Don't you want to come on the tug?"

"No."

"All right then, suit yourself."

And the next moment the steam tug shot out of sight, in the direction in which the hay barge was drifting.

The storm now let up a bit, and Ralph was able to take a good look at the fellow beside him. He was a tall, strong-looking chap, with sharp black eyes, and a heavy head of dark hair. He wore a long mustache, and there was a slight scar directly in the center of his forehead.

"What's your name, youngster?" he asked, presently, as Ralph let out the mainsail.

Ralph told him.

"Mine is Dock Brady. I am a surveyor from Utica. Do you follow this sort of thing for a living?"

"No, sir."

"Just out for pleasure, eh?"

"Hardly that; I am returning the boat to Westville for a friend."

"Oh, I see." Dock Brady mused for a moment. "Westville is quite a place, I believe," he went on.

"Not so very large, sir."

"Larger than Silver Cove, though?"

"Oh, yes--twice as large."

"Quite a few summer boarders, eh?"