Part 15 (1/2)

Then Bobby discovered that he was possessed of a great hunger, and he ran the skiff ashore on a wooded point, and in a snug hollow in the lee of a knoll and surrounded by a grove of thick spruce trees, where he ell sheltered frohted a fire, plucked and dressed one of the fifteen sea pigeons he had secured, and irill it for his dinner

He was thus busily engaged when snow began to fall Thicker and thicker it ca and his er or concern for his safety And, when he had eaten, reluctant to leave his cozy fire, he tarried still another half hour

”Well,” said he, rising at length, ”the snow's getting thick and I'd better be pulling back My! I didn't knoas so late! It's getting dusk, already, and it'll be good and dark before I get hoed from his sheltered nook that the wind had risen tremendously, that the cold had visibly increased, and that the chop had developed into a considerable sea, and that the snow, too, driving before the wind, was blinding thick

Bobby was not, however, alarh he realized there was no time to be lost if he would reach ho blizzard was upon him, and he chided hiood sea boat, and Bobby was a good sea-man, and he pulled fearlessly out upon the wind-saters And here the driving snow soon sed up the land, but Bobby was not afraid, and pulling with all his ht turned down before the storratulating himself that after all he would reach ho sea broke over his stern, and left the skiff half filled ater This was serious He could not relinquish the oars to bail out the water Another such deluge would srown too big for hi He searched his mind for a section of the shore within his reach, sufficiently free froed rocks and sufficiently sheltered to offer hiht hi, and which he had visited many times since

He was, fortunately, very near the island and when he heard the surf beating upon its rocky shores he determined quickly to ued, he could bail the water from the skiff, and then could pull across to the mainland, where he could haul up the skiff and walk horeeable tramp in the storm, but it was his safest and his only course

But even in the lee of the island the seas were running high and dashi+ng upon the rocks with such force that for the instant he held off, hesitating There was no other course, however The half-subed skiff would never live to reach theworse

And so, watching for an opportune moment, Bobby drove for the shore A roller carried the skiff on its crest, dropped it with a crash upon the rocks, and receded Bobby sprang out, seized the painter, and running forward secured it to a bowlder, that the next seahis opportunity, little by little and withand effort, he drew the skiff to a safe position beyond the waves, and as he did so he discovered that the water which it held ran freely out of it, and that one of its planks had been sreat hole

And there he et to the skin, stranded upon a wind-swept, treeless island, with a useless skiff and with never a tool--not even an ax--hich to make repairs And there he was, too, without shelter, and the first terrible blizzard of a Labrador winter rising, in its fury and awful cold, about hiathered with bare hands he did not know But more important than as cover from the storm, for without protection from the blizzard Bobby ell aware he could never survive the night

CHAPTER XVI

A SNUG REFUGE

The weather had suddenly beco was already stiff with ice The northeast wind, laden with Arctic frost, swept the island ithering blasts, and cut to the bone

The as rising, too, and there was no doubt that with darkness it would attain the velocity of a gale, and the storm the proportions of a sub-Arctic blizzard Snoas already falling heavily, and presently it would be driving and swirling in dense, suffocating clouds Winter had fallen like a thunderbolt from heaven

But Bobby never permitted himself to worry needlessly He was not one of those ith the least difficulty plunge into unnecessary discouragement and lose their capacity for action It was not in his nature to waste his tiht happen, but what in the end rarely did happen He conserved his mental and physical powers, and turned his orous and practical action And like every fortunate possessor of this valuable faculty, Bobby more often than not raised success out of failure

And so it came to pass that when Bobby found himself cast away upon the naked rocks of a small and treeless sub-Arctic island, with no shelter fro blizzard, and with no other tools than his hands, he did not give up and say, ”This is the end,” and then sit down to wait for the pitiless cold to end his sufferings What he did say was:

”Well, here I aot to find some way out of it”

He examined the skiff carefully and the examination satisfied him that it was too badly injured to be repaired with the y he set hi his would permit

First he scoured the island for wood, for he knew that presently the storm and blizzard would rise to such proportions as to render any efforts to find wood impossible, and any attempt to move about perilous, and therefore no time must be lost

In a little while he succeeded in collecting a considerable amount of driftwood, and when he turned his attention to other things he had the consolation of knowing that the gale would sweep the snow from the rocks and into the sea, and that any wood that he had overlooked in his search, or had no tiather, would be left uncovered, where he could find it when the blizzard was past and he could go abroad again

He piled his fuel by the side of a big, high, smooth-faced bowlder which he had purposely chosen because of its location, not far from the place where he had been driven ashore, and on the lee side of the island The smooth face of this bowlder looked toward the water, and with its back toward the wind it offered a fairly good wind-break, and a considerable drift had already fored as it was driven in swirling gusts around its ends or swept over its top

When his as gathered, Bobby withhard and fast cleared away the snow as best he could with the aid of sticks and feet from the smooth rock bed in front of the bowlder, and on which the bowlder rested He now carried fro about upon the wind-swept rocks, sufficient to build at right angles to the bowlder two rough walls about two feet high and as long as the width of the boat These walls were perhaps eight feet apart, and when they were finished he raised the boat, botto upon one, the prow extending over the other, and the side of the boat shoved back flush against the bowlder face