Mrs. White was all concern. She summoned Pepper and instructed him to find out the first train; she sent her maid to Trude's room to pack her clothes. And last she wrote a generous check. "You may need it, my dear. It is nothing. Don't thank me. I wish I could do more. Somehow your shoulders seem too young to carry so much responsibility!" So on the selfsame day that Sidney and the others set out upon their adventure Trude was journeying to Cape Cod. She missed connections at Boston and hired an automobile to take her to Provincetown, in her heart thanking Mrs. White for the check that made this possible. Two blow-outs delayed her journey so that it was midnight when she reached her destination. She could scarcely hunt out the Greens and Sidney at that hour. She took a room at the hotel for the night and sat for a while at its window straining her eyes out into the darkness. The howling of the wind intensified her apprehension; somewhere out in that strange blackness that enwrapped her was her little sister. Perhaps Sidney needed her that very moment! Finally she crept into bed and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not hear the running steps that passed under her window or the muffled voices of excited men. CHAPTER XXI "WHAT THE NIGHT HELD" "Oh--h, take me back to the cabin!" moaned Pola. "I guess we might as well," muttered Mart. Their matches had been long since exhausted; they had been of little avail for the one ship's light on the boat was without oil. One on each side of her, Mart and Sidney helped Pola down into the cabin. The boat was rolling heavily now in the rough sea, each lift and drop sending terror to the three young hearts. In the blackness of the night the waves looked mountain high. Even Mart was glad to shut them from view. "If--if we're going to drown I'd rather drown in--a--room," gasped Pola, clinging to Sidney and burying her face in Sidney's shoulder. It seemed to the girls as though months had passed since Lav had plunged to what they felt certain was his death. The _Arabella_ had tossed about on the roughening water like some wild thing, her old timbers creaking and groaning under their new living. Just at first Sidney and Mart had been too concerned in quieting the panic-stricken Pola to face their danger; not until Pola had exhausted herself did they think of their possible fate. Unless Lav succeeded in reaching the beach and giving an alarm, they might toss about for days or be dashed to pieces on some reef. Or, worse fate, Jed Starrow and his gang might find the boat and-- "Wh-at are you thinking about, Mart?" whispered Sidney after a long time of silence, broken only by the howling of the wind and the pounding of the water. "Let's talk--and then we can't hear--"