"Get up the mizzen storm sail!" ordered Captain Brisco. "She's falling off!" The schooner was indeed in danger of wallowing in the trough of the big waves. Pausing only for a moment, the sailors who had labored so valiantly at cutting loose the broken mast, sprang to get more sail on the craft. She was deprived of the reefed, or shortened, one that had been on the stick which was now overboard, and the jib was not enough to hold her head to the waves. "What is it? Oh what is it?" gasped Miss Pennington as Alice fell, rather than walked down the companionway into the cabin. "Are we sinking?" demanded Miss Dixon. "Not at all!" answered Alice, catching her breath, and, with a shake of her head freeing her face from the salty spray that had drenched her. "It isn't anything at all." She determined to make light of it, even though her own heart was beating like a hammer at the thought of her narrow escape from possible death. Alice really did not know whether there was any danger or not from the fall of the mast. She had often read of such things happening, and she remembered that the masts were always "cut away." So she supposed, as long as this was being done, that the proper course was being followed. "There's no danger at all," she said, speaking more calmly now. "No danger!" cried Miss Pennington. "Listen to that!" It was the noise of sailors on deck chopping away the mast-gear. "Oh, one of those upright sticks, that they hang the sails on, fell over. Not enough glue on it, I guess," said Alice, calmly. "Not enough glue!" gasped Paul. "Well, I never--" "Can't you take a joke?" Alice whispered to him, as she saw that her minimizing of the accident was having its effect. "Oh, yes, of course!" Paul exclaimed. "Not enough glue on it--Oh yes!" and he had to turn away to keep from smiling at the idea of a mast,--that is the most firmly set of anything on a ship, (being indeed almost an integral part of it)--the idea of that being stayed with glue was enough to make almost anyone smile, even in the midst of danger. The sounds on the deck gradually became more quiet. The danger seemed to be over for the time being. The moving picture actors and actresses crowded around Alice to hear her story of the accident. She carefully avoided mentioning her own peril, but she resolved to properly thank old Jack later. Just now Alice did not want her father to worry. His throat was troubling him, because of the amount of salt spray in the air. On deck Captain Brisco and Jack Jepson took charge of matters until the wreckage had been cleared away. And a lot of wreckage there was. The _Mary Ellen_ looked little like the trim, schooner that had left New York a few weeks before. Jack Jepson stepped close to the stump of the mainmast. He gave one look at it, and uttered a single word. "Rotten!" he exclaimed. "What's that?" cried Captain Brisco sharply.