Part 17 (1/2)

Nan was aroused by this. She glanced wildly around. They were a long way off Lighthouse Point, at the entrance to Freeling Inlet, and the storm was coming in such a direction that they must be driven up the lake and away from the Hall boat-landing--if, indeed, the canoe were not immediately swamped.

”Let go the sheet, Bess! Let go the sheet!” was Nan's first cry.

”Goodness me! And the pillow cases, too, if you say so!” chattered Bess, clawing wildly at the rope in question.

But she had tied it in a hard knot to the cleat, and the more she tried to pull the knot loose, the tighter it became.

”Quick! quick!” Nan cried, trying to paddle the canoe around.

She understood nothing about heading into the wind's eye; Nan only realized that they would likely be overturned if the wind and sea struck the canoe broadside.

The storm which had, at first, approached so slowly, now came down upon the canoe at terrific speed. The wind shrieked, the spray flew before it in a cloud, and the curtain of rain surrounded and engulfed the two girls and their craft.

The sail was torn to shreds. Nan had managed to head the canoe about and they took in the waves over the stern. She was saturated to the very skin by the first bucket of water.

Bess, with a wild scream of fear, cast herself into Nan's arms.

”We'll be drowned! we'll be drowned!” was her cry.

Nan thought so, too, but she tried to remain calm.

The water fairly boiled about them. It jumped and pitched most awfully.

The water that came inboard threatened to swamp the canoe.

Peril, Nan had faced before; but nothing like this. Each moment, as the canoe staggered on and the waves rose higher and the wind shrieked louder, Nan believed that they were nearer and nearer to death.

She did not see how they could possibly escape destruction. The sea fairly yawned for them. The canoe sank lower and lower as the foam-streaked water slopped in over the gunnels. _They were going to be swamped!_

CHAPTER XIV

IN THE NICK OF TIME

Bess Harley clung to her chum in an agony of apprehension. Perhaps Nan would have utterly given way to terror, too, had she not felt herself obliged to bolster up poor Bess.

The wind shrieked so about the two girls, and the roar of the rain and sea so deafened them, that Nan could offer little verbal comfort. She could only hug Bess close to her and pat her shoulder caressingly.

Then suddenly Nan seized the bathing cap from her chum's head, and, pus.h.i.+ng Bess aside, began to bail frantically with the rubber head covering. The rain and spray were rapidly sinking the canoe, and to free it of the acc.u.mulation of water was their only hope.

”Oh, dear! Oh, dear, Nan!” groaned Bess, over and over.

Nan had no breath left for idle talk. She bailed out the water as fast as she could. The canoe was too water-logged already to be easily steered. The sea merely drove it on and on; providentially it did not broach to.

”Throw out the cus.h.i.+ons!” Nan finally cried to her chum. ”Throw them out, it will lighten the canoe a little.”

”But--but we'll have to pay for them,” objected Bess, for perhaps the first time in her life becoming cautious.

”Do as I say!” commanded Nan. ”What are a few cus.h.i.+ons if we can save our lives?”