Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-11-14
The Argus Daily Short Story
ILL WINDS GOOD--BY CHARLES GRAVES.
Copyrghted 1908, by Associated Literary Press.

y flood of golden morning sunshins
streaming through the windows and
falling full upon his face awakened
Tom Goodhue. 1t awakened him with
rather unpleasant start and brought
to his mind the disquieting suspicion
that he had oversight
He came out of bed with a bound
and looked at his watch. 1t was 9:3G
half past 0, and he had an appoint
ment To go sailing with Helen Cayerly
at sharp. Surely the gods of misfor-
tune seyerally and collectively were
following in his train!
He dressed in record breaking time
bounded down the stairs and, break
fastiess, made all speed to the long
pier in front of the hotel, his mind
| busy with the many apologies he would
| undoubtedly need in a few moments.
But the apologies were doomed, for
| the present at least, to remain unspo-
! ken, for when he reached the pier he
| saw, running out of the harbor before
| the smart breeze, Il knockabout with Il
well known pennant fluttering from the
| mast
| Evidently Miss Caverly had grown
, weary of waiting for him. Goodhue
took long, lugubrious look at the dis
| tant sail and groaned.
| Yet he was not the man to submit
| tamely to adverse circumstances. At
the end of the pier lay hope in the
shape of his own power boat, pulling
| at her painter as she swung to the tide
In 4 moment he had scra mble1 aboard
pulled the cover from the engine and
| turned over the hywheel.
There was n series of sharp reports
He threw off the mornings, sprang 10
| the little wheel in the bow, and the
power boat went tearing away from
the pier, sending up twin waves of
white spume at her bow as she sped
in pursuit of the distant knockabout.
The engine of a power boat, how
ever, is not one of the things to be
| classed among such certainties as
death and taxes. Scarcely had he
passed tile can buoy on the outer
legde when there was an ominous
coughing of the exhaust.
Immediately it grew spasmodic and
seemed to take half hearted despair
ing note. Then it ceased altogether
and with this cessation the little craft
lay helpless on the long swells coming
in from the bay.
Countless precedent cases had taught
Goodhue what to do. He pulled of
his coat, caught up wrench and at
tackled the engine, not without a GER
tain grim wrath.
At the end of half an hour despite
all his art and all his mad efforts with
the wrench. the engine, beyond a few
derisive, choking puffs, refused to re
spond.
Goodhue hurled the wrench angrily
into the locker, shook a vindictive fist
Mt the balky machinery and delivered
himself of his opinions concisely and
forcefully.
Then he looked despairingly at the
sail momentarily growing smaller to
the eastward and raefully surveyed
the blue streak of shore behind him
not without certain poignant longings
for breakfast.
i All his laborS had merely succeeded
in getting him stalled here in the mid
die of the bay. He grunted his dis
gust, tied his handkerchief to a boat
hook as an improvised signal of dis
tress and set it up in the stern. Their
he stretched himself upon the cush
ions and calmly went to sleep.
He was awakened by ripping laugh
ter. He juiAped up to find close along
side q knockabout with it's sail rattlins
sharply as 1t headed into the wind. B,
the tiller was Helen Caverly, her eve:
sparkling as she took in his plight.
Goodhue struck melodramatic atti
tude, one hand on his forehead, thu
lother at his throat.