There was much to be done in Pinch-In Tickle that everything in and
about Skipper Zeb's cabin, which they were to leave the following
morning, should be snug and tight and tidy for the winter. There were
boats to be hauled out of the water and covered, that they might be
protected from the ice and snow, fishing gear and boat equipment to
stow, and much cleaning to be done about the fish stage and cabin. Then
there was Skipper Zeb's big trap boat to make ready for the voyage up
the bay. A mast step had to be repaired, sails mended, and no end of
tinkering before it met with Skipper Zeb's approval.
"I never says a thing's good enough unless 'tis right," declared Skipper
Zeb. "I likes to have my boats, and fishin' gear and dog trappin's ship
shape before I starts to use un. When I stops usin' they I leaves un as
right as I can so they'll be ready to use when I needs un again."
For a little while Charley, the picture of gloom, watched Skipper Zeb
and Toby stowing gear. Presently Skipper Zeb, who had been observing
Charley out of the corner of his eye, suggested:
"Come on, lad, and lend a hand. Toby and I needs help to haul the boats
up. Work's a wonderful fine medicin' for folks that's feelin' homesick.
Lend Toby and me a hand, and you'll be forgettin' all about this fix
you're in. I were thinkin' we'd taken all the kinks out o' that fix, and
that we made out 'twere no fix at all."
"I guess I would like to help, if you'll let me," Charley admitted. "It
isn't much fun standing around and doing nothing. What can I do?"
"We'll pull this un up first, she's heaviest," and Skipper Zeb indicated
one of two boats that were moored at the landing. "You take the port
side of un along with Toby, and I'll take the starb'rd side, and when I
bawls 'Heave ho!' we'll all heave on her together."
Charley did as he was directed, and while he did not believe that he was
lending much assistance, he did his best with each "heave ho!" boomed by
Skipper Zeb, and in due time the two boats were removed to a desirable
distance from high tide level. Timbers were now placed under them to
elevate them from the ground, and a roofing of heavy planking built over
them.
It was all novel and interesting to Charley. He lent a hand here and
there, and as they worked Skipper Zeb and Toby talked of the fishing
season just ended, and of the winter hunting and trapping, and of
journeys on snowshoes and with dogs and sledge, and related many
exciting adventures, until Charley quite forgot that he was marooned in
a strange land among strangers.
Before candles were lighted that evening, Charley had placed Skipper Zeb
and Toby in the category of the heroes of his favourite books of
adventure. Here he was in a wilderness as remote as any of which he had
ever read, and here he was with folk who were living the life and doing
the deeds and meeting the adventures of which he had often read with
breathless interest. When he went to sleep that night in a bunk with
Toby he would have been glad that the mail boat had not returned for
him, had it not been for the regret he felt for the grief he knew that
his mother and father would suffer when Mr. Wise would report to them
that he had been lost.
They ate breakfast by candle-light the following morning, and daybreak
was still two hours away when Charley embarked with Skipper Zeb and the
family for the voyage to Double Up Cove.
Skipper Zeb and Toby hoisted leg-o'-mutton sails on the foremast and
mainmast under the lee of the land though the sails did not fill to
Skipper Zeb's satisfaction, and he and Toby each shipped a big oar and
pulled for a little until they were in the open bay and beyond the
shelter of the hills. Then they stowed the oars, and Skipper Zeb took
the tiller.
A good breeze now bellied the sails, and almost immediately the morning
darkness swallowed up the outline of the cabins. No star, no light, no
land was to be seen, and Charley was only conscious of the swishing
waters that surrounded them. He wondered how Skipper Zeb could know the
direction with no landmarks to guide him. How vast and mysterious this
new world was! How far away and unreal the land from which he had come!
He tried to visualize home, and the city streets with crowded traffic
and jostling people; and crouching down in the boat a thought of the
luxury and comfort of his snug bed, in which he would now have been
cozily tucked were he there, came to him, and he drew the collar of his
ulster more closely around his ears, and thrust his hands into its deep
pockets.
For a long time no one spoke, and a sense of great loneliness was
stealing upon him, when Skipper Zeb, lighting his pipe, remarked:
"'Tis a good sailin' breeze, and come day 'twill be smarter, with more
sea, and I'm thinkin' more snow."
"How long a trip is it?" asked Charley.
"'Tis a short cruise. With a fair wind like we has now we makes un in
five or six hours, whatever," explained Skipper Zeb. "We never bides
here so late in the year. 'Tis wonderful late for us. We always goes
before the end of September month. This year I stays to help Mr.
McClung."
"It's a fine, big boat," said Charley.
"She's a wonderful fine boat!" boasted Skipper Zeb. "Twenty-eight foot
over all. I buys she last year from a schooner crew, south bound after
the fishin' ends. They wants to sell she bad, because they has no room
to stow she on deck, and in the rough sea that were runnin' they
couldn't tow she. I buys she for thirty dollars!"
"That was cheap, I should think," said Charley.
"'Twere, now!" and there was pride in Skipper Zeb's voice. "I'll tell
you how 'twere. We needs a trap boat wonderful bad for our cruisin', and
I says to Mrs. Twig, 'We'll skimp and save till we gets enough saved to
buy un.' So each year we saves a bit, sometimes more and sometimes less,
goin' without this and that, and not mindin', because when we goes
without somethin' we thinks about what a fine boat 'tis goin' to help us
get. And so we keeps savin' and savin' and skimpin' and skimpin'. We
were savin' for un for four years----"
"Five years, Zeb," Mrs. Twig corrected.
"You're right, Sophia, 'twere five years, and we has thirty dollars
saved. Then along comes the schooner with the boat, and the skipper says
to me, 'Skipper Zeb, you wants a trap boat. I'll sell you this un.' 'How
much does you want for un?' says I. 'You can have she for fifty
dollars,' says he, 'and that's givin' she to you.' 'All I has is thirty
dollars,' says I. 'Give me the thirty dollars and take un,' says he.
'I'd have to leave un behind whatever.' And so I gets un."
"You _were_ lucky!" said Charley.
"Lucky! Not that!" objected Skipper Zeb. "'Twere the Lard's doin's. He
knows how bad I wants un, and how we skimps to get un, and He says to
that skipper, 'You just sell that trap boat to Skipper Zeb Twig for
thirty dollars,' and the skipper just ups and sells un to me. _I_ says
the Lard were good, and I thanks _He_ for un, and not luck."
The northeast wind was rising. Charley huddled down in the bottom of the
boat, where he found some protection. A gray dawn was breaking, and this
is the coldest and bleakest hour of the day. With dawn both wind and
cold increased, until by mid-forenoon half a gale was blowing.
"We're makin' fine headway," said Toby. "We'll be getting to Double Up
Cove by twelve o'clock, _what_ever."
"I'm wishin' 'twere a bit calmer," observed Skipper Zeb, looking
critically at the sky, "but there's no signs of un."
"Can't we make a landin' somewhere, and wait for un to calm down?" asked
Mrs. Twig solicitously. "I fears cruisin' when 'tis so rough."
"They's no fair shore to land on this side o' the Duck's Head," answers
Skipper Zeb.
White horses were chasing each other over the surrounding sea. A half
hour later the wind had developed into a gale. Skipper Zeb reefed the
mainsail. Then taking a long oar from the boat, he dropped it between
two pegs astern, and while he used this as a sculling oar to steer the
boat, Toby unshipped the rudder and dragged it aboard.
"She's makin' leeway," Skipper Zeb explained, "and I can hold she up to
the wind better with the oar than the tiller."
A roller broke over the boat, and left a foot of water in the bottom.
Toby seized a bucket, and began to bail it out. Charley was now
thoroughly frightened, but with a bucket thrust into his hand by Mrs.
Twig, he assisted Toby.
The boat was on her beam ends, even with shortened sail. The air was
filled with flying spray, and now came the snow that Skipper Zeb had
predicted.
"We'll make a landin' in the lee of the Duck's Head," shouted Skipper
Zeb, his voice booming above the tumult of sea and wind.
Violet was crying, and clinging to her mother.
"Don't be scared, now!" Skipper Zeb reassured, though he was plainly
anxious. "There'll be a fine lee above the Duck's Head!"
"There's the Duck's Head!" Toby's voice suddenly came in warning.
"I sees un!" Skipper Zeb shouted back in confirmation.
"Take care the reef! She's straight ahead!" yelled Toby.
"She's makin' leeway the best I can do," came back from Skipper Zeb.
"Lend me a hand, Toby!"
Toby sprang to his assistance. The long oar bent under the superhuman
effort that the two put forth, but the boat was coming up. Charley saw,
in dim outline through the snow, a high, black mass of rock jutting out
in a long point. It bore a strong resemblance to a duck's neck and head,
and as though to form the duck's bill a reef extended for several yards
beyond into the water and over this the sea with boom and roar heaved in
mighty breakers, sending the spray a hundred feet into the air. If they
failed to pass that awful boiling caldron they would be lost. It was a
terrifying spectacle, and Charley's heart stood still.
They were close upon the reef. Skipper Zeb's face was tense. He was
working like a giant, and Toby, too, was putting all the strength he
possessed upon the sculling oar. With a scant margin to spare, they were
at last shooting past the outer rocks, when the oar snapped with a
report that was heard above the boom of the breakers.
An instant later came a crash, Violet screamed in terror, and Charley
felt the bottom of the boat rise beneath his feet.