Joe was alone on the St. Lawrence in the middle of the night, and
with a sprained wrist, which nearly disabled him so far as paddling
was concerned. Worse than this, his comrades had disappeared,
and there could not be the slightest doubt that their canoes had
floated away with them while they were sound asleep. What chance
had he of finding them? How could he get ashore, with his sprained
wrist; and what probability was there that the three boys thus
carried away in their sleep would escape from their dangerous
situation without any serious accident?
As these questions presented themselves to Joe his first impulse
was to admit that he was completely disheartened and to burst into
tears. He was, however, far too manly to yield to it, and he
immediately began to think what was the best thing that he could do
in the circumstances.
The water was perfectly smooth, so that there was really no danger
that the runaway canoes would capsize, unless their owners should
start up in a fright and not fully understand that their canoes
were no longer on solid land. Neither was there much chance that
they would be run down by steamboats, for the steamboat channel
was near the south shore of the river, a long distance from the
sand-spit. Joe remembered how fast the tide had risen the day
before, and he calculated that the missing canoes must have been
afloat about half an hour before the water reached the place
where he was sleeping. They would naturally drift in the same
direction in which the _Dawn_ was drifting; and all that it would
be necessary for Joe to do in order to overtake them would be to
increase the speed at which his canoe was moving.
There was a scarcely perceptible breeze blowing from the south.
Joe got up his main-mast and set his sail. Light as the breeze
was, the canoe felt it, and began to move through the water. Joe
steered by the stars, and kept the _Dawn_ as nearly as possible on
the course which he supposed the other canoes had taken. He had no
lantern with him, and could see but a little distance ahead in the
dark, but he shouted every few moments, partly in order to attract
the attention of the missing canoeists, and partly in order to warn
any other boat that might be in the neighborhood not to run him
down.
After sailing in this way for at least an hour, and hearing no
sound whatever but his own voice and the creaking of the canoe’s
spars, Joe was startled at perceiving a black object just ahead of
him. He avoided it with a vigorous movement of his paddle, and as
he drifted close to it with the wind shaken out of his sail he saw
to his great delight that it was a canoe.
It was the _Sunshine_, with her canoe-tent rigged over her, and her
commander sound asleep. Taking hold of her gunwale, Joe drew the
two canoes together and put his hand gently on Harry’s forehead.
Harry instantly awoke, and hearing Joe begging him as he valued his
life to lie perfectly still, took the latter’s advice, and asked,
with some alarm, what was the matter. When he learned that he was
adrift on the river he sat up, took down his tent, and getting out
his paddle joined in the search for Tom and Charley.
“They must be close by,” said Harry, “for all three canoes must
have floated away at the same time. Tom and Charley sleep sounder
than I do, and if I didn’t wake up it’s pretty certain that they
didn’t.”
Presently Charley’s canoe was overtaken. Charley had been awakened
by the sound of Harry’s paddle and the loud tone in which Harry
and Joe were talking. He was sitting up when the _Dawn_ and the
_Sunshine_ overtook him; and having comprehended the situation in
which he found himself on awaking, he was making ready to paddle
ashore.
There was now only one canoe missing--the _Twilight_. Harry, Joe,
and Charley took turns in shouting at the top of their lungs for
Tom, but they could obtain no answer except the echo from the
cliffs of the north shore. They paddled up the river until they
were certain that they had gone farther than Tom could possibly
have drifted, and then turned and paddled down stream, shouting at
intervals, and growing more and more alarmed at finding no trace of
the lost canoe.
“She can’t have sunk, that’s one comfort,” exclaimed Harry, “for
the bladders that Tom put in her at Chambly would keep her afloat,
even if he did manage to capsize her in the dark.”
“He took the bladders out yesterday morning and left them on the
sand just in the lee of his canoe,” said Charley. “Don’t you
remember that he sponged her out after we landed, and that he said
that he wouldn’t put his things back into her until we were ready
to start?”
“I remember it now,” replied Harry. “And I remember that I did the
same thing. There’s nothing in my canoe now except my water-proof
bag and my blankets. But they’re not of much consequence compared
with Tom. Boys, do you really think he’s drowned?”
“Of course he isn’t,” cried Joe. “We’ll find him in a few minutes.
He must be somewhere near by, and he’s sleeping so sound that he
don’t hear us. You know how hard it is to wake him up.”
“Tom is a first-rate swimmer, and if he has spilt himself out of
his canoe and she has sunk, he has swum ashore,” said Charley.
“My opinion is that we had better stay just where we are until
daylight, and then look for him along the shore. He’s worth a dozen
drowned fellows, wherever he is.”
Charley’s advice was taken, and the boys waited for daylight
as patiently as they could. Daylight--or rather dawn--came in
the course of an hour, but not a glimpse of the missing canoe
did it afford. The tide had already changed, and the top of the
treacherous sand-spit was once more above water, and not very far
distant from the canoes. As soon as it was certain that nothing
could be seen of Tom on the water his alarmed comrades paddled
toward the north shore, hoping that they might find him, and
possibly his canoe, somewhere at the foot of the rocks.
They were again unsuccessful. While Joe sailed up and down along
the shore, the two other boys paddled close to the rocks, and
searched every foot of space where it would have been possible for
a canoe to land, or a canoeist to keep a footing above the water.
They had searched the shore for a full mile above the sand-spit
and had paddled back nearly half the way, when they were suddenly
hailed, and looking up, saw Tom standing on a ledge of rock ten
feet above the water.
“Are you fellows going to leave me here all day?” demanded Tom. “I
began to think you were all drowned, and that I’d have to starve to
death up here.”
[Illustration: “HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET UP THERE?”]
“How in the world did you get up there?” “Where were you when we
came by here half an hour ago?” “Where’s your canoe?” “Are you all
right?” These and a dozen other questions were hurled at Tom by his
excited and overjoyed friends.
“I was asleep until a few minutes ago,” replied Tom. “I got up here
when the tide was high, and I had hard work to do it, too.”
“What’s become of your canoe? Is she lost?” asked Harry.
“She’s somewhere at the bottom of the river. I tried to turn over
in her in the night, thinking she was on the sand-spit, but she
turned over with me, and sunk before I could make out what had
happened.”
“And then you swum ashore?”
“Yes. I saw the north-star, and knew that if I could swim long
enough I could find the shore. When I struck these rocks I was
disappointed, for I couldn’t find a place where I could land until
I got my hands on this ledge and drew myself up.”
“Unless Tom wants to stay where he is we’d better invent some way
of taking him with us,” remarked Joe.
“He’ll have to get into my canoe,” said Harry.
“How deep is the water where you are?” asked Tom.
“It’s anywhere from six feet to sixty. I can’t touch bottom with
the paddle, so it’s certain to be more than seven feet deep.”
“Then, if you’ll please to give me room, I’ll jump, and somebody
can pick me up.”
Tom jumped into the water, and had little trouble in climbing into
Harry’s canoe--the water being perfectly quiet. The fleet then
paddled back to the sand-spit, where they landed and breakfasted,
while Tom dried his clothes by the fire.
Every member of the expedition except Joe had lost something, and
poor Tom had lost his canoe and everything except the clothes
which he was wearing. As long as the water continued to be smooth
Tom could be carried in either Harry’s or Charley’s canoe, but in
case the wind and sea should rise it would be very difficult, if
not impossible, to keep the canoe right side up with two persons
in her. Quebec was still at least twenty-five miles distant, and
it would take nearly a whole day of very hard work to paddle a
heavy canoe, with two boys in her, only one of whom was furnished
with a paddle, twenty-five miles, even in the most favorable
circumstances. Moreover, Joe’s sprained wrist made it impossible
for him to paddle, and the wind was so light that sailing to Quebec
was out of the question.
It was therefore decided that Harry should take Joe in the
_Sunshine_ back to the Jacques Cartier, and leaving him to walk to
the nearest railway-station, should return to the sand-spit and
join Tom and Charley in paddling down to Quebec, Tom taking Joe’s
canoe. Although the boys had originally intended to end their
cruise at Quebec, they had become so fond of canoeing that they
would gladly have gone on to the Saguenay River and, if possible,
to Lake St. John; but now that Tom was without a canoe no one
thought of prolonging the cruise.
Quebec was reached by the fleet several hours after Joe had
arrived there by the train. He was at the landing-place to meet
his comrades, and had already made a bargain with a canal-boatman
to carry the canoes all the way to New York for five dollars each.
As the _Sunshine_ was fitted with hatches which fastened with a
lock, and as it would be necessary for the Custom-house officer
at Rouse’s Point to search her, Harry wrote to the Custom-house
at that place, giving directions how to open the lock. It was a
padlock without a key, one of the so-called letter-locks which can
be opened by placing the letters in such a position that they spell
some particular word. Harry had provided the canoe with this lock
expressly in order to avoid trouble at Custom-houses, and in this
instance the plan proved completely successful, for the officer at
Rouse’s Point was able to unlock the canoe and to lock it up again
without a key.
The boys spent a night and a day at Quebec, and, after seeing their
canoes safely started, they took the train for New York. As they
talked over their cruise on the way home they agreed that canoeing
was far more delightful than any other way of cruising, and that
they would go on a canoe cruise every summer.
“As soon as I can afford it I shall get a new canoe,” said Tom.
“Will you get a ‘Rice Laker?’” asked Harry.
“Of course I will. My canoe was much the best boat in the fleet,
and I shall get another exactly like her.”
“There’s no doubt that you are a genuine canoeist, Tom,” said
Charley. “You’ve had lots of trouble with your canoe because she
had no deck, and at last she sunk and nearly drowned you, because
she had no water-tight compartments; but for all that you really
think that she was the best canoe ever built. Is everybody else
convinced that his own canoe is the best in the world?”
“I am,” cried Joe.
“And I am,” cried Harry.
“So am I,” added Charley; “and as this proves that we are all
thorough canoeists, we will join the American Canoe Association at
once, and cruise under its flag next summer.”
THE END.
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=TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE=
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the
text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Pg 26: ‘more then ever’ replaced by ‘more than ever’.