The enormous strength and endurance of the old hunter were shown by the amount he accomplished in those two hours. Boxes and kegs, so heavy that Larry could hardly budge them, he seized and tossed ashore in tireless succession, only pausing once long enough to throw off his jacket and outer shirt. For the perspiration was running off his face in streams, despite the fact that the air was freezing cold.
Fortunately most of the parcels were relatively small, as they had been prepared for the prospective inland hunting excursion which was to have been made on sledges. Many of the important articles were in small cans, and Larry rushed these ashore by the armful. He was staggering, and gasping for breath at times, and once he stumbled and fell half way down a stairway from sheer exhaustion. But he had caught Martin’s spirit of eager haste, and although the fall had shaken him up considerably, he picked himself up and went on as fast as his weary limbs would carry him.
At last Martin paused, wiping his face with his coat sleeve. “Sit down and rest,” he said to the boy. “We’ve got a whole winter’s supply on shore there now, if food alone was all we needed. So we can take a little more time about the rest of the things; and while you rest I’ll rig up some tackle for getting what we can of the heavier things ashore. You’ve done pretty well, for a city boy,” he added.
Then he went below, and Larry heard the sounds of blows and cracking timber. Presently Martin appeared, dragging some heavy planks after him. With these he quickly laid a bridge from the deck to the shore. Then he hunted out some long ropes and pulleys, and, carrying them to a tree far up on the bank, he rigged a block and tackle between this anchorage and the yacht.
“Now we’re ready for the heavy things,” he said.
With this new contrivance nothing seemed too big to handle. Martin and Larry would roll and push the heavy cases into a companionway, or near a hatch, and then both would seize the rope, and hand over hand would work the heavy object up to the deck across the bridge, and finally far out on shore. In this way the greater part of everything movable had been transferred from the boat by the middle of the afternoon; but not until the last of the more precious articles had been disposed of did Martin think of food, although they had breakfasted at daylight.
In the excitement Larry, too, had forgotten his hunger; but now a gnawing sensation reminded him that he was famished. Martin was “as hungry as a wolf in winter” he admitted. But he did not stop to eat. Calling the dogs and filling his pockets with biscuit to munch as he walked, he started out along the rocky shore of the inlet, to see if by any chance some survivor had washed ashore. Meanwhile Larry built a big fire at the edge of the woods to act as a signal, and to keep himself warm.
In two hours the old man returned from his fruitless search. He had found some wreckage strewn among the rocks, but no sign of a living thing. “And now we must get these things under cover,” he said, indicating the pile of stores.
For this purpose he selected a knoll some little distance from the shore above where any waves could possibly reach. Over this he laid a floor of planks, and spread a huge canvas over the boards. Then they began the task of piling all the landed goods on top of this, laying them up neatly so as to occupy as little space as possible, and over this great mound of food-boxes, gun-cases, canned goods, and miscellaneous objects, they pulled a huge canvas deck covering.
By the time they had finished the daylight was beginning to wane. Taking the hint from the approaching darkness, Martin dug into the mass of packages and produced a small silk tent, which he set up under one of the scrub trees which was sheltered by a big rock well back from the shore.