He was thrilled with the delights of adventure, now that any real danger seemed past, and he made for himself pleasant pictures of his return to school and the rôle of hero he would fill in the eyes of the other fellows.
Presently Dan ceased playing, and they chatted intermittently. Once a great sea creature raised its back directly in front of them.
“What’s that?” asked Paul.
“A white whale,” answered Dan, as the thing sank, to appear again much farther out to sea.
At another time they passed several seals, and Paul wished to shoot at them, but Dan advised:
“’Tis rare hard t’ hit un, an’ if you did hit one an’ kill un, she’d sink before we could get un. An’ we’ll be needin’ all th’ cartridges,” so Paul did not shoot.
The sun was close to the western horizon when, ravenously hungry, for they had eaten nothing since breakfast, they ran into a little cove, unloaded their belongings, hauled the boat to a safe position, and made camp. They had kept steadily going all day, for Dan had been unwilling to lose advantage of the fair wind, and had they gone ashore to cook dinner it would have consumed at least an hour of valuable time.
“Th’ days is growin’ wonderful short,” said Dan, “an’ we’ll have t’ be usin’ all of the daylight when th’ wind’s fair an’ good. ’Twill save grub, too, if we eats only twice a day.”
During the four succeeding days they made indifferent progress. The weather was glorious, but the wind for hours at a stretch died to a dead calm, the sail hung slack, and to keep in motion they were compelled to work at their stern oar, and progress by this means was slow and tedious.
They were very sparing of their provisions. A couple of geese were killed and added to their store, but nothing else. Then came another day with a good breeze, but when they went into camp that night they had only a gull to divide between them for supper. It was an unpromising shore for game, and Dan expressed himself of the belief that it would be quite fruitless to hunt.