Part 25 (1/2)

”Better come for'ard. Got to haul outer jib down before it blows away!”

he shouted.

Up to his knees in water, Wyllard staggered after him and made out by the mad banging that some one had already cast the peak of the boom-foresail loose. He reached the windla.s.s, and clutched it, as a sea that took him to the waist frothed in over the weather rail. The bows lurched out of it viciously, hurling another icy flood back on him, and he could see a dim white chaos of frothing water about and beneath them.

Above rose the black wedge of the jibs.

He did not want to get out along the bowsprit to stop one of them down, but there are many things flesh and blood shrink from which must be faced at sea. He made out that a Siwash was fumbling at the down-haul made fast near his side, and when the man's shadowy figure rose up against the whiteness of the foam he made a jump forward. Then he was on the bowsprit, lying upon it while he felt for the foot-rope slung beneath. He found it, and was cautiously lowering himself when the man in front of him called out harshly, and he saw a white sea range up ahead. It broke short over with a rush and roar, and he clung with hands and feet for his life as the schooner's dipping bows rammed the seething ma.s.s.

The vessel went into it to the windla.s.s. Wyllard was smothered in an icy flood that seemed bent on wrenching him from his hold, but that was only for a moment or two, and then, streaming with water, he was swung high above the sea again. It was bad enough merely to hold on, but that was a very small share of his task, for the big black sail that cut the higher darkness came rattling down its stay and fell upon him and his companion. As it dropped the wind took hold of the folds of it and buffeted them cruelly. As he clutched at the canvas it seemed to him incredible that he had not already been flung off headlong from the reeling spar. Still, that banging, thras.h.i.+ng canvas must be mastered somehow, though it was snow-soaked and almost unyielding, and with bleeding hands he clawed at it furiously while twice the bowsprit raked a sea and dipped him waist-deep into the water. At last, the other man flung him the end of the gasket, and they worked back carefully, leaving the sail lashed down, and scrambled aft to help the others who were making the big main-boom fast. When this was done Wyllard fell against Dampier and clutched at him.

”How's the wind?” he roared.

”Northeast,” answered the skipper.

They could scarcely hear each other, though the schooner was lurching over it more easily now with shortened canvas, and Wyllard made Dampier understand that he wished to speak to him only by thrusting him towards the deck-house door. They went in together, and stood clutching at the table with the lamplight on their tense, wet faces and the brine that ran from them making pools upon the deck.

”The wind has hauled round,” said the skipper, ”the wrong way.”

Wyllard made a savage gesture. ”We've had it from the last quarter we wanted ever since we sailed, and we sailed nearly three months too late.

We're too close in to the beach for you to heave her to?”

”A sure thing,” agreed Dampier. ”I was driving her to work off it with the sea getting up when the breeze burst on us. She put her rail right under, and we had to let go 'most everything before she'd pick it up.

She's pointing somewhere north, jammed right up on the starboard tack just now, but I can't stand on.”

This was evident to Wyllard, and he closed one hand tight. He wanted to stand on as long as possible before the ice closed in, but he realized that to do so would put the schooner ash.o.r.e.

”Well?” he questioned sharply.

Dampier made a grimace. ”I'm going out to heave her round. If we'd any sense in us we'd square off the boom then, and leg it away across the Pacific for Vancouver.”

”In that case,” observed Wyllard, ”somebody would lose his bonus.”

The skipper swung around on him with a flash in his eyes. ”The bonus!”

he repeated. ”Who was it came for you with two dollars in his pocket after he'd bought his ticket from Vancouver?”

Wyllard smiled at him. ”If you took that up the wrong way I'm sorry. She ought to work off on the port track, and when we've open water to leeward you can heave her to. When it moderates we can pick up the beach again.”

”That's just what I mean to do.”

Dampier went out on deck, while Wyllard, flinging off his dripping clothing, crawled into his bunk and went quietly to sleep.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FIRST ICE

Before they hove to the _Selache_, daylight broke on a frothing sea, across which scudded wisps of smoke-adrift and thin showers of snow.

With two little wet rags of canvas set the schooner lay almost head on to the big combers. Having little way upon her, she lurched over instead of ramming the waves, and though now and then one curled on board across her rail it was not often that there was much heavy water upon her slanted deck.