"Get ready to slip over, and go ashore!" ordered Thad, "I'll take the anchor cable with me, and see that it's made fast to a rock or a tree. We may find a chance to mend the boat, and anyway it's just as well that we try and keep her here; though if the wind whips around no cable would hold her, I reckon."
Giraffe was the first to drop over. The water hardly came above his waist; but then his height was responsible for this, and cautious Bumpus did not deceive himself on that account. Still he found that he could easily wade, and in a short time all of them had reached the friendly rocks.
Here Thad made the rope secure.
"I'm going back for a few more things, and you might come along with me,
Allan," the scout-master remarked.
"I reckon you think there's a pretty good possibility that the wind will veer around, sooner or later, and that the old tub won't be in sight when morning comes?" Allan remarked, as he pushed out alongside his chum.
"Chances tend that way," was the replied Thad, "and anyhow, it's better that we get all the supplies we have ashore. Then if 'we have to play Crusoe for a while we'll have something to go on with."
"Our stock happens to be pretty low," remarked Allan; "and Giraffe was only this morning complaining that he didn't get enough to eat, and that we'd better stop off somewhere to buy more bacon and bread and such things. Too bad we didn't think of that when near Duluth, which place you wanted to avoid because of certain reasons."
They made the trip without accident. Then it was considered that about all had been taken from the stranded and half sunken cruiser that was worth salving.
Already was Giraffe hunting for some good place where they might find shelter, and start a fire; for while it had not rained as yet, strange to say, a flood was likely to come down at any moment, so long as the heavens remained as dark as they were still.
Bumpus was looking all around him. He did not wander away from the rest, because it seemed as though that mysterious island on which they had been cast might be inhabited by wild beasts of prey, for all they knew, ready to spring upon a nice, juicy morsel like him, and make a meal. That was one of the disadvantages in being plump, Bumpus always insisted, because envious eyes were won't to fall upon him first of all.