All their efforts were now devoted to keeping the canoe from being caught and up-ended or deluged by the waves, and in bailing out the water that threatened to swamp it. The wind blew a gale, lashing them with rain and stinging sleet that would have chilled them through if they had not had to work so hard. As it was they were so wholly taken up with the struggle to keep from going to the bottom, that they had no time to think of bodily discomfort, even though their clothes were soaked, their faces stinging, their hands aching with cold.
In a far shorter time than it had taken them to paddle to the north and east, the wind bore them back to the southwest. So close to its northwestern side that they could distinguish its cliffs through the rain and sleet, they ran by the island they had left a few hours before. There was no possibility of making a landing, and they began to fear that they would be borne past Minong also.
The great island extends several miles farther to the westward, however, and its outlying points and small islands lay directly in their way, too directly for safety. Their course was a little too westerly to take them close to the high ridge. They were driven past the land that lay to the northwest of the ridge, and down among islands and reefs. At no time since the storm broke had they been in more imminent peril. The gale was so strong, the waves so high, they could no longer steer their little craft. They were carried close to reefs and islands, missing by a few feet or even inches being cast upon the rocks. Yet they found no place where, with a sudden twist of the paddle, they might shoot through into shelter.
The thundering of breakers sounded straight ahead. Through the rain and sleet, land appeared suddenly. Powerless to escape it, they had just time to lift their paddles from the water, when the surf caught the canoe and flung it on the beach. Instantly they were over the side, struggling for a foothold on the slippery pebbles, as the receding wave tried to drag them back. Grasping the bars of the canoe, they managed to scramble up the narrow beach with it, but before they could bear it to safety, another wave caught them and flung them forward on their faces. Jean lost his hold. But Etienne and Ronald clung to it, and, resisting the pull of the water, managed to drag the boat forward into a thicket above the reach of the waves.
The three were safe, though somewhat bruised and battered, but the canoe was split and shattered by its rough handling, and, what was worse, everything it had contained had been thrown out into the water. Scarcely waiting to get their breaths, the castaways set about rescuing what they could. By running down the narrow, slanting beach and plunging into the water between waves, they managed to save the gun and one bow. In a desperate attempt to rescue the package of food, Jean was caught by a wave and might have been drowned, if Ronald had not seized him in time and dragged him back. The bark-covered package was carried out to deep water and disappeared. One of the blankets and the roll of apakwas were flung high on shore, and caught in a stunted bush that ordinarily would have been well above water line. Fortunately the three always carried their light axes, their knives, fishing tackle and other little things on their persons, so those were saved also. Everything else, including the other blanket, the caribou hide, and the cedar cord net, was lost.
[XXI]
COMPELLED TO GIVE UP THE SEARCH
In the woods back from the beach, the castaways built a rough wigwam. Even in the partial protection of the trees, it was hard work in the driving rain and sleet, but all three were soaking wet and bitterly chilled. They had to have shelter and warmth. Fortunately the roll of apakwas had been saved. Poles were set up, and Nangotook and Jean, beginning at the bottom, wrapped the apakwas around the framework, each strip overlapping the one below, so that the water could not run down between. More poles and branches were tied with withes over the bark covering to hold it in place.
In the meantime Ronald had been cutting fuel. The wood was wet and coated with ice. Even the Indian might have striven in vain for a blaze had he not been lucky enough to find a small, dead birch, that contained, within its protecting bark, dry heart wood that crumbled to powder. With this tinder he succeeded in kindling bark and fine shavings. Then he added dead limbs split into strips, and finally larger birch wood and resinous spruce. On one side of the fire, which had been made within the lodge, Ronald piled the wood he had cut, and on the other the three crouched to dry their soaked clothes and warm their chilled bodies. They had nothing to eat, and no way of getting anything in the bitter, driving storm, which was continually growing worse.
A miserable night they spent in that rude shelter, huddled together on damp evergreen branches, under their one remaining blanket, which they had dried before the fire. Surf lashed the beach, and the wind roared in the tree tops, that swayed and clashed together, the trunks creaking as if they must snap off and be hurled down on the wigwam. Sleet and frozen snow rattled on the bark covering. It was lucky indeed for the treasure-seekers that they had been cast ashore before the storm reached its height. Long before nightfall it had grown so violent that there was not one chance in a thousand for a canoe to live through it.