“We’ve run over a breaker,” said John; “if we had been ten feet farther astern it would have filled and sunk us. How could it be that, when you and Fred are both on the lookout, you didn’t see it?”
“I’ll tell you why,” said Charlie; “because it didn’t break after we were in sight. It is one of those breakers I have heard father tell of, that break only once in a good while; he said, that while some break every three minutes, and oftener, others break only once in fifteen minutes, or half an hour; and you cannot see such breakers in the night, and might be running right over one when it broke, as we came near doing just now.”
“Luff!” cried Fred; and, as they looked under the sail, they saw the white foam of the surf to the leeward.
“There’s breakers all around us,” said Charlie; “let’s take to the oars, and then we can keep clear of them.”
Our young readers must bear in mind that these canoes could only go before the wind, or a little quartering, and therefore could not, like a boat, be luffed sharp into the wind, and beat out clear of danger; hence the boys preferred to take the sail in, and trust to their oars, with which they could, if they saw a breaker, pull away from it. At length they discovered a narrow passage, that seemed to lead in among the breakers to a high bluff, and rowed into it, having reefs and breakers on either side of them. They coasted along the bluff till they discovered beyond it a low point, and between them a cove with a little narrow beach. In the end of the high bluff was a large cave, into which the moon shone, partly revealing its extent. Here they determined to land, and build a brush camp. While they were looking about for a place to get up the rocky, steep shore, they stumbled upon this cave, and determined to explore it. It ran about twenty feet into the rock, which, being formed to a great extent of iron pyrites, had crumbled beneath the united forces of the frost and waves. John clambered up the bank, and found some dry brush, with which they made a torch. As they went in they found the bottom rose, and in the middle was a little elevation, somewhat higher than the rest. The walls were ragged, and just high enough to permit them to stand upright.
“What a nice place to camp!” said John; “we couldn’t have a better one.”
“But won’t the tide come in here? You know it is full of the moon, and high tides, now,” asked Fred.
“I don’t believe it does, else there would be chips, drift stuff, and sea-weed in here; but this is as clean as a house floor.”
There was plenty of dead wood on the top of the bluff; this they cut, and tumbled down the bank; then cut some hemlock boughs from small bushes, that were soft to sleep on, and put them on the little elevation in the middle. Then they stuck birch-bark torches into the crannies in the cave, moored the canoe in front of it, and took their guns, fishing-lines, and powder-horns, and set them up in the back part of the cave. They now piled up a great heap of wood in the mouth of the cave, so that the smoke would not enter, kindled the fire, and lighted the torches, till it was one glare of light, and the old rocks steamed with the heat. The provisions they had brought were eagerly devoured, with the exception of the remnants of the sand-bird pie, and some bread, which were left for another occasion. The perils they had passed through, and the strange position in which they were placed, rendered them little inclined to sleep.
Though boys are little given to sentiment, and the animal nature predominates, yet the scene was so singularly wild and beautiful, it was impossible they should not be impressed by it, which they manifested in their own fashion.