ADRIFT ON THE OCEAN.
The dory was a better sea boat than they had imagined. In a situation
where a craft of another build would not have lived an instant, she
succeeded in riding the first onslaught of the tide-bore. In another
instant, Tom and Jack had her around with stern to the stampeding seas
and were being borne swiftly along.
Alongside, a thousand angry, choppy waves reached up like hungry
hands, as though determined to come on board and drag the craft to her
doom. The manner in which the boat handled surprised and delighted
Tom, and Jack was no less pleased. True their position was still a
highly precarious one, but at least the watery grave they had dreaded
had not yet engulfed them.
Sandy sat up in the bottom of the boat and looked about with wondering
eyes.
"We're all right the noo?" he asked.
"I won't say that," rejoined Tom, "but at least we have got over the
first great danger."
"What are we doing?"
"Riding along on the top of the tide-rip, for that's what it must be,
and now I remember hearing of such a thing on this coast."
"How long will it keep on, I wonder?" questioned Sandy.
"I don't know. I suppose till the tide is full or till we get out of
the passage that we must be in."
The others looked at him silently.
"But this is a dandy boat," went on Tom cheerily, plying his steering
oar, for there was no need to row in that rushing current, "she rides
like a chip."
Even a powerful steamer, if caught where the boys were, could have
done little more than they were doing to meet the emergency. Her only
course would have been to run before the furious tide. The boys began
to be resigned to their fortune. The fog seemed to lift occasionally
now and then, shutting down, however, as densely as ever between the
intervals of lighter weather.
Wild screams of sea birds that flew by like spirits of mist assailed
their ears. Now and then the herculean splash of a great dolphin
feeding in the tide came close alongside and startled them smartly.
True it was that they were still afloat and now appeared likely to
remain so, but each moment was carrying them rapidly further from
their friends and closer and closer to dangers whose nature they could
only surmise.
As Sandy thought of all this, his fears began to return. His lip
quivered.
"I wish we'd never left the ship," he said at last.
"That's a fine way to talk," spoke Tom sternly. "When you're in a
scrape the only thing to do is to try to get out of it as best you
can."
"That's the stuff," assented Jack, "but if we only had something to
eat, I'd feel a little better."
"Maybe there's something under that stern seat," suggested Tom,
indicating the place he meant. Sandy raised the seat, which tilted
back disclosing a locker, and gave a cry of delight. Two tins of beef,
some packages of crackers and a big pie reposed there. Evidently Bill
Rainier, the pilot, believed in carrying lunch with him when he went
out in a fog.
"Jiminy crickets," roared Jack, as one after another Sandy held up the
eatables, "just think, those have been there all this time! Let's eat
and forget our troubles."
"Better go slow," admonished Tom, no less pleased, however, than the
others at this unexpected good fortune.
Jack cut open the meat tins with his knife and they fell to eating as
they discussed their situation. They made a good meal, not forgetting
liberal portions of the pie. But the lack of water troubled them.
Crackers and salt beef with dried raisin pie do not make a lunch
calculated to allay thirst. But they were in no mood to complain. The
food alone heartened them wonderfully and put them in a mood to face
their dilemma less despairingly.
Little by little the waves began to grow smaller. The current grew
less swift.
"We must have reached some place where the channel widens and the tide
can spread out," observed Tom, noticing this. "Now if the fog would
only lift, maybe we could get ashore some place."
"Let's try the oars again," suggested Jack.
"That's a fine idea if we only knew where to row to," rejoined Tom.
"I'm afraid we'll have to drift till the fog lifts. I've no more idea
which way our course lies than the man in the moon."
"Same here. I'm all twisted up like a ball of yarn," admitted Jack.
Although they had been afloat for such a long time, it was still
daylight. At that time of year in those regions it is light almost all
day long. This was a good thing, for if darkness had overtaken them
they would doubtless have become even more alarmed than they were. For
some time they drifted on, when all at once a sudden shift of the wind
came. The fog was whipped into white ropy wreaths that drifted off
like smoke. And there before them, not half a mile off, was a fair
sized bay edged by rocky cliffs, but green and tree-grown close by the
water. The blue bay, smooth and calm compared to the open sea, led
back into the heart of a noble mountain panorama. Beyond the coast
hills were snow-covered peaks and inaccessible valleys. Between the
hills that formed the bay, the vegetation was plainly fresh and
verdant.
"Hurray!" shouted Jack, carried away by enthusiasm at the sight of
land once more.
Tom checked him gently.
"Remember we have no idea where we are yet," he said. "This country is
sparsely settled and we may have stumbled on some desert part of it."
Jack's face fell, and Sandy, who had been about to share his
rejoicing, remained silent.
"Can't you figure out what land this is?" asked Jack.
"I've not the remotest idea. I'm like you, all twisted up as to
locality."
"That bore gave us such a shaking up, I couldn't tell east from west,"
observed Sandy.
"At any rate, that land yonder is no illusion," declared Tom cheerily.
"Come on, boys, get busy with the oars and we'll be ashore in no
time."
"I hope it is inhabited," said Jack.
"Same here; but that remains to be seen. At any rate, judging by the
green trees and grass there's water there from the mountains beyond.
We can stop some place ashore and make camp."