"Now," said Bobby, when he and Jimmy were dressed, after Jimmy had wrung as much of the water as possible from his clothes, "we're going to have a hard time of it getting the water out of her. How'll we do it?"
"Can't we get her alongside and turn her over?" Jimmy suggested. "We can pull her up empty."
With some mighty pulling and hauling, and many futile efforts, they at length succeeded, and presently the skiff was in the water again and floating as easily as though nothing had happened and it had never once been under the waves. And then a new problem confronted them.
"The oars! The oars are gone!" exclaimed Jimmy in consternation.
And so they were. Nowhere could they discover the oars, though they clambered up the iceberg again and scanned the surrounding sea.
"Well," said Bobby, "that's hard luck! I wonder if we can't make father or some one hear. Let's get up on top and yell."
From the top of the iceberg they shouted and shouted, but Mrs. Abel was in one tent, busied with her household affairs, and Skipper Ed and Abel were in the other tent, making ready their fishing gear, and the breeze blew from the land, and altogether no one heard the shouting.
"No use," said Bobby at last, descending to the skiff. "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll knock one of the seats out, split it, and make two paddles. They'll be short, but they'll do us to get ashore. It isn't far."
"It looks as though it's the only thing to do, unless we want to stay here for three or four hours," agreed Jimmy, taking the ax and knocking out the seat. "I'm shivering cold from my wetting."
"It's lucky I hung to the ax," said Bobby, as he watched Jimmy fashioning the paddles.