But before the startled and apprehensive girl could formulate a conclusion as to the significance of what she had seen and heard, there came an interruption. In the spring great numbers of shad journey from the depths of the Atlantic to their spawning grounds far up in the head waters of the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers. The Sound fisherman is alert to know the time of their coming and stakes his gill nets all along the miles upon miles of shallows away from the buoy-marked channel of the Sound, in order that he may gain for himself the high prices paid in the northern markets for these delicacies of the sea. It is the rule that after the shad season the stakes to which the nets had been tied shall be removed. But sometimes carelessness, or worse, leaves the stakes in their places. In many instances these are broken off below the surface of the water by the buffeting of the waves. Thus invisible, they become a serious menace in the course of small boats. Sometimes in rough water, a boat falling from a wave has struck on one of these to have its bottom pierced, and forthwith to fill and sink. It was one of these stakes that now caused catastrophe. The sloping stern scraped over it. Next instant, the brittle bronze propeller blades rasped against it. They were swept off as smoothly as icicles from a window ledge, and the homeward cruise of the frail little tender was at an end. There came a scream from Ethel, which was echoed by a groan from the physician as his thoughts went in despair to the two pellets--only two! It was with the mechanical action of the experienced yachtsman that he threw the throttle of the engine as it raced free from the propeller's resistance. "Oh, Doctor," the girl cried, "what is it now? What has happened to us--" "Our propeller blades are stripped, Miss Marion," he answered, in a tone of deep dejection. "There is no injury to the hull, of course, or we would have taken in water already. There is no danger, but," he concluded with great bitterness, "it is very discouraging, I must admit." "What shall we do, Doctor?--drift with the wind until we are picked up by some passing vessel?" "I think not, Miss Ethel," Garnet replied. "Judging from the direction of the breeze, in less than an hour we shall come on the shore of Core Banks." He spoke in a new voice of gentleness as he continued: "Pray do not worry. I don't believe there is an acre of water that we will pass over where the depth would be above our arm-pits."