ILLUSTRATIONS
| FACING PAGE | |
| It seemed to Mabel that she could detect a sound of breathing | [Frontispiece] |
| The space behind the log was already occupied | [124] |
| Seated on the dry end was a stout, placid man | [256] |
| "Mother!" he cried. "Mother! It's my Mother!" | [276] |
INTRODUCTION
When the biggest lake there is chooses to go on one of her very best rampages, even the bravest of mariners make as speedily as possible for safe harbors. At midnight, therefore, following a certain blustery day in early summer, it was not strange that the huge, storm-tossed lake appeared, for as far as eye could reach, absolutely deserted.
Somewhere, however, on that fearfully tumultuous sea, one direly threatened craft was still abroad, and, what is a greater marvel, still afloat. At best, the ancient yawl was but a poor excuse for a ship; now, at her worst, she was little more than a raft. Driven before the wind, tossed here and there by the buffeting waves, she carried a solitary passenger and only a little one at that.
Indeed, he wasn't at all the kind of sailor that one would expect to find sailing dangerous seas all alone at midnight, for the solitary mariner, adrift in all that wilderness of tumbling water, was a twelve-year-old boy.