Part 29 (2/2)

”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 splas.h.i.+ng and gurgling.

”It's pouring into her!” he cried.

”Then, you'll have to pump!”

”We pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 thras.h.i.+ng 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ash.o.r.e. 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 sh.o.r.e 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 ash.o.r.e afterward, they lay on the s.h.i.+ngle in the suns.h.i.+ne 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.”

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