Then he realized that the seas had grown too big for him to weather, and his one hope was to make a landing. He searched his mind for a section of the shore within his reach, sufficiently free from jagged rocks and sufficiently sheltered to offer him a safe landing, and all at once he bethought himself of the bird island where he and Jimmy had gone egging, 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 make an effort to run upon its lee shore. Here, he argued, 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 home. It would be a disagreeable 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 dashing upon the rocks with such force that for the instant he held off, hesitating. There was no other course, however. The half-submerged skiff would never live to reach the mainland. With every passing minute conditions were growing worse.
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 sea might not carry it away.
Then, watching his opportunity, little by little and with much tugging and 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 smashed, and in the bottom of the skiff was a great hole.
And there he was, wet to the skin, stranded upon a wind-swept, treeless island, with a useless skiff and with never a tool—not even an ax—with which 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 him. And whether or not there was any wood about that could be gathered with bare hands he did not know. But more important than wood was cover from the storm, for without protection from the blizzard Bobby was well aware he could never survive the night.
CHAPTER XVI
A SNUG REFUGE
The weather had suddenly become intensely cold, and Bobby's wet clothing was already stiff with ice. The northeast wind, laden with Arctic frost, swept the island with withering blasts, and cut to the bone.