THE FIRST MISADVENTURE.
The breeze freshened fiercely with the red and fiery dawn, and Vane, who
had gone below, was advised of it by being flung off the locker on which
he sat with coffee and biscuits before him, in the saloon. The jug,
overturning, spilled its contents upon his person, the biscuits 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.
"I'll let her come up when you're ready," Carroll remarked. "We had
better get some sail off her, if we mean to hold on to the mast."
He put down his helm, and the sloop, forging round to windward, rose
upright, with her heavy mainboom banging to and fro. After that, they
were desperately busy for the next few minutes, and Vane wished they had
engaged a hand in Vancouver, instead of waiting to hire a Siwash
somewhere up the coast. There was a headsail to haul to windward, which
was difficult, and the mainsheet to get in; and 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 afterwards drove away with her lee rail just awash.
"You had better go down and get some biscuits," Vane said to his
comrade. "You mayn't have an opportunity later."
"It looks like that," Carroll agreed. "The wind's backing northwards,
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.
He 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, while 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 amidst a frothing
cascade which poured into the well, Vane brought the sloop round, and
they stretched away to the eastwards, until they could let go the anchor
in smooth water beneath a wall of rock. They were very wet, and stiff
with cold, for winter was drawing near.
"We'll get supper," said Vane. "If the breeze drops at dusk, we'll go on
again."
Having eaten little since dawn, they enjoyed the meal, and Carroll would
have been content to remain at anchor afterwards. The tiny saloon was
comfortably warm, and it would be pleasanter to lounge away the evening
on a locker with his pipe, instead of sitting amidst the bitter spray at
the helm. But Vane 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," he said. "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 to make
any great pace."
"I can imagine a man who knew he must reach the coast before he started
making a pretty vigorous effort. Do you remember the time we crossed the
divide in the snow?"
"I could remember it, if I wanted," said Carroll with a shiver. "It's
about the last thing I'm anxious to do."
"The trouble is that there are many valleys in this strip of country,
and we may have to try a number before we strike the right one," Vane
went on. "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 it would be advisable," Carroll, who looked after
their finances, answered. "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 you off
this timber-hunting scheme. You can't spend many dollars over it, and if
the spruce comes up to expectations, you ought to get them back. It
would be a fortunate change, after your extravagance in England."
"That is 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. A nipping wind came down
across the darkening firs ashore, but there was no doubt that it had
fallen somewhat, and he resigned himself when Vane began to pull the
tiers off the mainsail.
In a few minutes they were under way, the sloop heading out towards open
water with two reefs down in her mainsail; a great 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.
They held on and, soon after day broke with its first red flush
ominously high in the eastern sky, stretched in towards 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, before he turned to his companion.
"Will she weather the point on this tack?" he asked.
"She'll have to," said Vane, who was steering.
They stood 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 crumpled into chaotic
spouting on the point's outer end. The sloop would not last long if she
touched bottom there; but once more, after a glance at his companion'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 also 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 skill, and she had almost cleared the
point when there was a bang, 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 and cut his
forehead, for his wet face was smeared with blood, but he had seized a
big oar to shove her off when she swung upright, moved, and struck
again. The following sea hove her up; there was another less violent
crash, and while 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 reported.
Vane nodded. "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," said Vane; "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 wind to the
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 shortly.
The pump was, fortunately, a powerful one, and they had nearly two miles
of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other
track; but when they did so Carroll, who glanced down again through the
scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water.
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 her. Carroll
wondered how far ahead the inlet his companion had mentioned 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 went through
the combers, swept and streaming, while the spray scourged the
helmsman's face as he gazed to weather. Their arms and shoulders ached
from working in a cramped position, but since there was no help for it,
they toiled doggedly, until at last the crest of a crag they were
heading for sloped away in front of them.
A few minutes later, they drove past the end of it into a broad lane of
water with long ranks of firs dropping steeply to its edge. 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. Vane strode
to the scuttle and looked down at the flood which splashed languidly to
and fro below.
"It's fortunate that we're in. Another half-hour would have seen the end
of her," he said. "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, about which there rose great black firs, and Carroll laid her on
the beach.
"Now," said Vane, "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."
Since 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 appetising
one. They were, however, glad of it, and, rowing ashore afterwards, they
lay on the shingle in the sunshine while the sloop was festooned with
their drying clothes.
"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 from?" Carroll inquired. "I don't think
we have any spikes that would go through the frames."
"That," said Vane, "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 neighbourhood. I can't say that this expedition
is beginning fortunately."
"There's no doubt on that point," Carroll agreed.
"Well," said Vane, "she has to be patched up, and until I find that
spruce I'm going on."
Carroll made no comment. It was not worthwhile to object when Vane was
obviously determined.