The Wilderness Castaways Part 14

Dan soon had the box in pieces and the nails removed.

"I'm wonderful slow to think of things sometimes," remarked he as he worked. "Now why weren't I thinkin' of this box first off?"

Cleats were fas.h.i.+oned by Dan from the pieces of box, with the axe as his one working tool, and he was finally ready to nail them in position, where they would hold the broken planks in place. Nails were few, and it was necessary that great economy be practiced in their use and that each be driven where it would do the most good.

The swell was increasing, the north wind was rising, and with every hour the position of the boys was becoming more dangerous. The first cleat had scarcely been nailed down when a wave broke over the pan, was.h.i.+ng its whole surface, not deep enough to carry the things away, but suggesting the possibility that another one might presently do so.

Dan had fortunately put his cleats in the boat as he made them, or the wave would certainly have carried off the light pieces of wood.

"Paul, you be loadin' the things in the boat," said Dan, "while I does th' mendin'. Th' next swell breakin' over th' pan may carry th' bags overboard. Load th' light bags first."

Paul obeyed, and when the next wave, a little heavier than the first, broke over the pan the outfit was out of its reach.

It was well past noon when the last cleat was placed, and Dan began to caulk with strips torn from a s.h.i.+rt, using as his tool a wedge made from a piece of the box.

The caulking was not yet half done when the boys were startled by a loud report, like that of a gun.

"There she goes!" exclaimed Dan. "I were lookin' for un! Th' pan's busted!"

And sure enough, fully a third of their pan had broken loose from the main body of ice which held them.

Heavier swells, now and again moving the boat slightly, swept the pan.

Dan worked desperately at his caulking; Paul, sitting in the boat clinging to his seat, was expecting every moment to be washed from the ice. As he looked out into the fog and beheld the growing anger of the sea his apprehension grew. He realized fully their imminent peril, and he began to doubt the ability of the frail boat, even had it been free from damage, to weather the high piling waves.

All at once he thought he saw something in the distance, a faint splotch in the fog, and he called out:

"Dan! Dan! See there! What is that?"

Dan raised his eyes from his work and looked.

"Land! 'Tis th' land!" he exclaimed. "'Tis th' land and we'll soon be ash.o.r.e."

The tide was carrying them in, and more and more distinct a rocky outline of coast loomed up. Dan did not stop his repairs, however, and presently the task of caulking was finished.

"There," said he, "she's caulked, an' she'll do to take us ash.o.r.e."

"Can't we float her now and land?" asked Paul, in feverish excitement.

"That's a p'int of land," said Dan, "We're driftin' in around un, and I'm thinkin' th' tide'll carry us to the lee, an' we'll have less sea to launch in, if we waits a bit."

"Oh, but I want to get ash.o.r.e!" exclaimed Paul. "Couldn't we launch off here?"

"We might and we mightn't," answered Dan cautiously. "We can't move th' boat without unloadin' she. If we launches on the lee, th' ice'll be likely to ram in, an' smash un ag'in, before we gets free, an' if we tries to launch on ary other side th' waves'll be smas.h.i.+n' un ag'in' th' ice before we gets th' outfit aboard. And anyway, if we unloads th' outfit on th' ice th' sea's like to work un overboard before we gets th' boat launched. I'm thinkin' we'd better tarry a bit."

Dan's surmise proved correct. The ice slowly swept past the point, and, carried upon the bosom of a rising tide, they gradually pa.s.sed into a bay, and calmer water.

"Now," announced Dan, who had been watching his opportunity, "we'll try un."

The things were taken out of the boat, the boat pushed off and alongside the pan and easily reloaded in the now gentle swell, and the boys with their outfit aboard shoved out into the bay.

The one remaining oar Dan took astern, dropped it between two pegs placed there for the purpose, and working the oar adeptly back and forth both propelled and steered the boat sh.o.r.eward. The damaged bow was found to be so well repaired that it leaked very little, and in a few minutes a safe landing was made upon a sloping, gravelly bit of beach.

For several minutes the boys stood silent, looking toward the fog-enshrouded sea from which they had just been delivered. Dan at length broke silence:

"Thank the Lord, we're safe ash.o.r.e," said he reverently.

"Yes, it's almost too good to believe." Tears of joy stood in Paul's eyes as he spoke. "When the s.h.i.+p finds us and picks us up, Dan, I'm going to tell Captain Bluntt that it was all my fault we didn't go aboard when he told us to, and I'm going to tell everybody how you saved our lives by mending the boat. We never could have got off the ice if you hadn't mended the boat."

"'Twere nothin' to mend th' boat," deprecated Dan.

"Oh, yes, it was," insisted Paul. "There aren't many could have done it, and when the s.h.i.+p picks us up I'll tell them all about it."

But they were not to see the _North Star_ again, and they were not to be picked up. They were destined to face the rigors of a sub-Arctic winter in the unknown wilderness upon whose sh.o.r.es they had drifted.

CHAPTER VIII

FACING STARVATION

Paul and Dan surveyed their surroundings. So far as they could discover, in the dense fog, which enshrouded land as well as sea, they were stranded upon a desolate, verdureless coast. Behind them rose a ledge of storm-scoured rocks which reached out into the sea in a rugged cliff to the eastward, and formed the point they had rounded to enter the bight. And out on the rocky point they could hear the breakers in dismal, rhythmic succession, pounding upon the rocks.

The sounding breakers made Paul shudder as he realized how narrowly he and Dan had escaped a fate of which he scarcely dared think. He was profoundly thankful for their deliverance, and rugged as their coast was he had no thought of complaint against the fate that had placed him upon it.

Nowhere was there a tree or even a bush to be seen. Even the moss that here and there found lodgment in creva.s.ses of the rocks seemed to struggle for an uncertain existence. Some driftwood, however, strewn along the beach, offered fuel for their tent stove.

"'Tis a wonderful bleak place," said Dan, "but I'm thinkin' 'tis better inside, with timber growin' an' maybe a river comin' in, t'

bring this drift down."

"But it's too late to go up there tonight," protested Paul, dreading to venture upon the fog-covered water again, even in the boat.

"Aye, 'tis too late to go t'night. 'Tis already growin' dusk, an' I'm not thinkin' t' cruise around in th' fog, on land or on water. 'Twould be temptin' th' Lord t' send us adrift ag'in, after settin' us safe ash.o.r.e."

"We're both wet to the skin, and I'm freezing. Can't we make a fire?"

suggested Paul, his teeth chattering.

"We'll be settin' up th' tent in th' lee o' this rock. 'Tis lucky we has th' jointed tent poles, with nary a tree about."

"Can't I help?" asked Paul, as Dan jointed the poles and unrolled the tent.

"You might be carryin' up th' outfit, an' we gets th' tent up, we'll put un inside. 'Twill warm you up t' be carryin' un."

In fifteen minutes the tent was up, the tent stove in place, and Dan was cutting driftwood for a fire while Paul stowed away their belongings, and in another fifteen minutes a fire was roaring in the stove.

"Oh, but this is cozy," exclaimed Paul, reclining close to the stove, "and now I'm ravenously hungry again."

"'Tis wonderful cozy in th' tent," agreed Dan. "I'll take th' kettle an' look for water, an' when I comes back we'll boil th' kettle an'

have a snack."