THE FIRST MISADVENTURE
The breeze freshened fiercely with the red and fiery dawn. Vane, who had
gone below, was advised of it by being flung off the locker in the
saloon, where he sat with coffee and crackers before him. The jug,
overturning, spilled its contents upon him, and the crackers were
scattered, but he picked himself up in haste and scrambled out into the
well. He found the sloop slanted over with a good deal of her lee deck
submerged in rushing foam, and Carroll bracing himself against the strain
upon the tiller. To windward, the sea looked as if it had been strewed
with feathers, for there were flecks and blurs of white everywhere.
"I'll let her come up when you're ready!" Carroll shouted. "We'd better
get some sail off her, if we mean to hold on to the mast!"
He thrust down his helm; and the sloop, forging round to windward, rose
upright, with her heavy main-boom banging to and fro. After that, they
were desperately busy for a few minutes. Vane wished that they had
engaged a hand in Vancouver, instead of waiting to hire a Siwash
somewhere up the coast. There was the headsail to haul to windward, which
was difficult, and the mainsheet to get in; then the two men, standing on
the slippery, inclined deck, struggled hard to haul the canvas down to
the boom. The jerking spar smote them in the ribs; once or twice the
reefing tackle beneath it was torn from their hands; but they mastered
the sail, tying two reefs in it, to reduce its size; and the craft drove
away with her lee rail just awash.
"You'd better go down and get some crackers," Vane advised his comrade.
"You'll find them rolling up and down the floor. I spilled the coffee,
but perhaps the kettle's still on the stove. Anyhow, you may not have an
opportunity later."
"It looks like that," Carroll agreed. "The wind's backing northward, and
that means more of it before long. You can call, if you want me."
He disappeared below, and Vane sat at the helm with a frown on his face.
An angry coppery glare streamed down upon the white-flecked water which
gleamed in the lurid light. It was very cold, but there was a wonderful
quality that set the blood tingling in the nipping air. Even upon the
high peaks and in the trackless bush, one fails to find the bracing
freshness that comes with the dawn at sea.
Vane, however, knew that the breeze would increase and draw ahead, which
was unfortunate, because they would have to beat, fighting for every
fathom they slowly made. There was no help for it, and he buttoned his
jacket against the spray. By the time Carroll came up the sloop was
plunging sharply, pitching showers of stinging brine all over her when
the bows went down. They drove her at it stubbornly most of the day,
making but little to windward, while the seas got bigger and whiter,
until they had some trouble to keep the light boat they carried upon the
deluged deck. At last, when she came bodily aft amid a frothing cascade
which poured into the well, Vane brought the sloop round, and they
stretched away to eastward, until they could let go the anchor in smooth
water beneath a wall of rock. They were very wet, and were stiff with
cold, for winter was drawing near.
"We'll get supper," said Vane. "If the breeze drops a little at dusk,
which is likely, we'll go on again."
Having eaten little since dawn, they enjoyed the meal; and Carroll would
have been content to remain at anchor afterward. The tiny saloon was
comfortably warm, and he thought it would be pleasanter to lounge away
the evening on a locker, with his pipe, than to sit amid the bitter spray
at the helm. The breeze had fallen a little, but the firs in a valley
ashore were still wailing loudly. Vane, however, was proof against his
companion's hints.
"With a head wind, we'll be some time working up to the rancherie, and
then we have thirty miles of coast to search for the inlet Hartley
reached. After that, there's the valley to locate; he was uncertain how
far it lay from the beach."
"It couldn't be very far. You wouldn't expect a man who was sick and
badly lame to make any great pace."
"I can imagine a man, who knew he must reach the coast before he starved,
making a pretty vigorous effort. If he were worked-up and desperate, the
pain might turn him savage and drive him on, instead of stopping him. Do
you remember the time we crossed the divide in the snow?"
"I could remember it, if I wanted to," Carroll answered with a shiver.
"As it happens, that's about the last thing I'm anxious to do."
"The trouble is that there are a good many valleys in this strip of
country, and we may have to try a number before we strike the right one.
Winter's not far off, and I can't spend very much time over this search.
As soon as the man we put in charge of the mine has tried his present
system long enough to give us something to figure on, I want to see what
can be done to increase our output. We haven't marketed very much refined
metal yet."
"There's no doubt that it would be advisable," Carroll answered
thoughtfully. "As I've pointed out, you have spent a good deal of the
cash you got when you turned the Clermont over to the company. In fact,
that's one reason why I didn't try to head off this timber-hunting
scheme. You can't spend much over the search, and if the spruce comes up
to expectations, you ought to get it back. It would be a fortunate
change, after your extravagance in England."
Vane frowned.
"That's a subject I don't want to talk about. We'll go up and see what
the weather's like."
Carroll shivered when they stood in the well. It was falling dusk, and
the sky was a curious cold, shadowy blue. A nipping wind came down across
the darkening firs ashore, but there was no doubt that it had fallen
somewhat, and Carroll resigned himself when Vane began to pull the tiers
off the mainsail.
In a few minutes they were under way, the sloop heading out toward open
water with two reefs down in her mainsail, a gray and ghostly shape of
slanted canvas that swept across the dim, furrowed plain of sea. By
midnight the breeze was as strong as ever, but they had clear moonlight
and they held on; the craft plunging with flooded decks through the
white combers, while Carroll sat at the helm, battered by spray and
stung with cold.
When Vane came up, an hour or two later, the sea was breaking viciously.
Carroll would have put up his helm and run for shelter, had the decision
been left to him; but he saw his comrade's face in the moonlight and
refrained from any suggestion of that nature. There was a spice of
dogged obstinacy in Vane, which, although on the whole it made for
success, occasionally drove him into needless difficulties. They held
on; and soon after day broke, with its first red flush ominously high in
the eastern sky, they stretched in toward the land, with a somewhat
sheltered bay opening up beyond a foam-fringed point ahead of them.
Carroll glanced dubiously at the white turmoil in the midst of which
black fangs of rock appeared.
"Will she weather the point on this tack?" he asked.
"She'll have to! We'll have smoother water to work through, once we're
round, and the tide's helping her."
They drove on, though it occurred to Carroll that they were not opening
up the bay very rapidly. The light was growing, and he could now discern
the orderly phalanxes of white-topped combers that crumbled into a
chaotic spouting on the point's outer end. It struck him that the sloop
would not last long if she touched bottom there; but once more, after a
glance at Vane's face, he kept silent. After all, Vane was leader; and
when he looked as he did then, he usually resented advice. The mouth of
the bay grew wider, until Carroll could see most of the forest-girt shore
on one side of it; but the surf upon the point was growing unpleasantly
near. Wisps of spray whirled away from it and vanished among the scrubby
firs clinging to the fissured crags behind. The sloop, however, was going
to windward, for Vane was handling her with nerve and skill. She had
almost cleared the point when there was a rattle and a bang inside of
her. Carroll started.
"It's the centerboard coming up! It must have touched a boulder!"
"Then jump down and lift it before it strikes another and bends!" cried
Vane. "She's far enough to windward to keep off the beach without it."
Carroll went below and hove up the centerboard, which projected several
feet beneath the bottom of the craft; but he was not satisfied that the
sloop was far enough off the beach, as Vane seemed to be, and he got out
into the well as soon as possible.
The worst of the surf was abreast of their quarter now, and less-troubled
water stretched away ahead. Carroll had hardly noticed this, however,
when there was a second heavy crash and the sloop stopped suddenly. The
comber to windward that should have lifted her up, broke all over her,
flinging the boat on deck upon the saloon skylight and pouring inches
deep over the coaming into the well. Vane was hurled from the tiller. His
wet face was smeared with blood, from a cut on his forehead, but he
seized a big oar to shove the sloop off, when she swung upright, moved,
and struck again. The following sea hove her up; there was a third, less
violent, crash; and as Vane dropped the oar and grasped the helm, she
suddenly shot ahead.
"She'll go clear!" he shouted. "Jump below and see if she's damaged!"
Carroll got no farther than the scuttle, for the saloon floorings on the
depressed side were already awash, and he could hear an ominous splashing
and gurgling.
"It's pouring into her!" he cried.
"Then, you'll have to pump!"
"We passed an opening some miles to lee. Wouldn't it be better if you ran
back there?" Carroll suggested.
"No! I won't run a yard! There's another inlet not far ahead and we'll
stand on until we reach it. I'd put her on the beach here, only that
she'd go to pieces with the first shift of the wind to westward."
Carroll agreed with this opinion; but there is a great difference between
running to leeward with the sea behind the vessel and thrashing to
windward when it is ahead, and he hesitated.
"Get the pump started! We're going on!" Vane said impatiently.
Fortunately the pump was a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and
they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of
the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down
again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced
the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased,
though he did not expect that state of affairs to last. When they drove
out into broken water, he found it difficult to work the crank. The
plunges threw him against the coaming, and the sea poured in over it
continually. There are not many men who feel equal to determined toil
before their morning meal, and the physical slackness is generally more
pronounced if they have been up most of the preceding night; but Carroll
recognized that he had no choice. There was too much sea for the boat,
even if they could have launched her, and he could make out no spot on
the beach where it seemed possible to effect a landing if they ran the
sloop ashore. As a result of this, it behooved him to pump.
After half an hour of it, he was breathless and exhausted, and Vane took
his place. The sea was higher; the sloop wetter than she had been; and
there was no doubt that the water was rising fast inside of her. Carroll
wondered how far ahead the inlet lay; and the next two hours were anxious
ones to both of them. Turn about, they pumped with savage determination
and went back, gasping, to the helm to thrash the boat on. They drove her
remorselessly; and she swept through the combers, tilted and streaming,
while the spray scourged the helmsman's face as he gazed to weather. The
men's arms and shoulders ached from working in a cramped position; but
there was no help for it. They toiled on furiously, until at last the
crest of a crag for which they were heading sloped away in front of them.
A few minutes later they drove past the end of it into a broad lane of
water. The wind was suddenly cut off; the combers fell away; and the
sloop crept slowly up the inlet, which wound, green and placid, among the
hills, with long ranks of firs dropping steeply to the edge of the water.
Vane loosed the pump handle, and striding to the scuttle looked down at
the flood which splashed languidly to and fro below.
"It strikes me as fortunate that we're in," he commented. "Another
half-hour would have seen the end of her. Let her come up a little!
There's a smooth beach to yonder cove."
She slid in quietly, scarcely rippling the smooth surface of the tiny
basin, and Carroll laid her on the beach.
"Now," advised Vane, "we'll drop the boom on the shore side to keep her
from canting over; and then we'll get breakfast. We'll see where she's
damaged when the tide ebbs."
As most of their stores had lain in the flooded lockers, from which there
had been no time to extricate them, the meal was not an appetizing one.
They were, however, glad to have it; and rowing ashore afterward, they
lay on the shingle in the sunshine while the sloop was festooned with
their drying clothes. There was no wind in that deep hollow, and they
were thankful, for the weather was already getting cold.
"If she has only split a plank or two, we can patch her up," Vane
remarked. "There are all the tools we'll want in the locker."
"Where will you get new planks?" Carroll inquired. "I don't think we
have any spikes that would go through the frames."
"That is the trouble. I expect I'll have to make a trip across to Comox
for them in a sea canoe. We're sure to come across a few Siwash somewhere
in the neighborhood." Then he knit his brows. "I can't say that this
expedition is beginning fortunately."
"There's no doubt on that point," Carroll agreed.
"Well, the sloop has to be patched up; and until I find that spruce I'm
going on--anyway, as long as the provisions hold out. If we're not
through with the business then, we'll come back again."
Carroll made no comment. It was not worth while to object, when Vane was
obviously determined.