“You mean you think there may be some fuel in the tank, after all?” asked Merritt, looking up.

“It’s possible.  Have you tried the little valve forward of the carburetor?”

“Why, no,” rejoined Merritt; “but I hardly think—­”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a carburetor had fouled, particularly after what we went through in that squall,” remarked Tubby.  “It’s worth trying, anyhow.”

He bent over the valve he had referred to, which was in the gasoline feed pipe, just forward of the carburetor, and placed there primarily for draining the tank when it was necessary.

“Look here!” he yelled, with a sudden shout of excitement.  “No,” he cried the next moment, “I don’t want to waste it—­but when I opened the valve a stream of gasoline came out.  There’s plenty of it.  That stoppage is in the carburetor.  Oh, what a bunch of idiots we’ve been!”

“Better sound the tank,” suggested Merritt; “what came out of the valve might just be an accumulation in the pipe.”

“Not much,” rejoined the other, “it came out with too much force for that, I tell you.  It was flowing from the tank, all right.”

“We’ll soon find out,” proclaimed Merritt.  “Give me the sounding stick out of that locker, Hiram.”

Armed with the stick, Merritt rapidly unscrewed the cap of the fuel tank and plunged the sounder into it.

“There’s quite a lot of gasoline in there yet,” he exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, as he withdrew and felt the wet end of the instrument.

The carburetor was rapidly adjusted.  The rough tossing about the Flying Fish had received had jammed the needle valve, but that was all.  Presently all was in readiness to get under way once more with the little boat’s proper motive power.  The “jury rig” was speedily dismantled Merritt swung the flywheel over two or three times, and a welcome “chug, chug!” responded.

“Hurray! she’s working,” cried Hiram.

“As well as ever,” responded Merritt.  “Now for the shore.  By the way,” he broke off in a dismayed tone, “where is the shore?”

“I know now,” rejoined Tubby in a confident tone.  “Off there to the right.  You see, that steamer was hugging the coast preparatory to heading seaward—­at least, I’m pretty sure she was, and that would put the shore on her port side, or on our starboard.”

They chugged off in the direction Tubby indicated, and before long a joyful cry from Hiram announced the sudden appearance of lights.

“What are they?” asked Merritt.

“Don’t know—­they look like bonfires,” rejoined the other lad.  “I wonder if we have been lucky enough to pick up Topsail Island?”

As they drew nearer the lads soon saw that it was the island that they were approaching, and that the lights they had seen were campfires ignited by order of the anxious young Patrol leader to guide them back.

In a short time they had anchored the Flying Fish opposite the camp, and jumped into the dinghy left at her moorings when they embarked.