Marian knew a good deal about rowing and sailing a boat, but this was a different matter. To begin with, they had only one really good pole. The other was too short, besides being crooked, and their craft swung round and twisted and did its best to wobble its way back to the beach. At last, however, they got out quite a way, beyond the depth of the shortest pole, but when they came to round the point there was trouble again. Finally Marian jumped off and, half swimming, half wading to shore with the lariat, towed them round the point; and then, because they made better progress that way, accomplished most of the rest of the journey so.
THE VOYAGE BEGAN
Davie also preferred to do most of his traveling on his own feet, and Marian did not blame him, for the float did not even look like a safe craft, and the way it wobbled and bobbed might well have made an older passenger than Davie uneasy. So he trudged on, mostly in the edge of the water, now and then whimpering when he hurt his bare toes and again laughing gleefully at some treasure of the sea which the fates cast at his feet.
MARIAN TOWED THEM ROUND THE POINT
At some places it was not convenient to tow the float, and then they resorted to poling altogether. At one or two points Delbert took the rope and swam across to a better place for pulling. And several times the bundles of wood became loosened, and all hands had to retire to shore till Marian could get them satisfactorily retied.
Altogether, their progress was so slow that the day was nearly done before they moored their gallant craft to the little rock pier behind the Island.
Next day they tried it another way. They took all the wood off and allowed the old fragment to turn turtle. That did a great deal better in some ways, but it was a little difficult to get aboard of it. Once they were aboard, however, it sustained the weight of them all well enough, though, of course, there was no freeboard at all, and, while it was willing to remain in that position, the ends of the canoe, being well under water, offered considerable resistance and made it more difficult to pole than a boat or raft would have been.
Jennie thought Marian had better cut off those ragged ends and leave only the smooth side, but Marian was not anxious to attempt such a task as that with only a dull hatchet and a few knives to work with. Besides, she was not sure at all but she would some day want those ends right where they were. She could not think of any way of improving it, and even as it was it enlarged the horizon of their daily lives.