Once more he stumbled blindly to the deck, still more than half asleep and shivering with the cold.
Another gray day. Angry snow clouds scudded across the leaden sky, the wind whistled through the mastheads with a threatening sound, heavy ice blocked the sea, becoming thicker and thicker as they plowed further and further into the north.
Breakfast cheered Bobby a bit, and he was suddenly seized with an almost overwhelming curiosity to see if their secret of the longboat had been discovered yet.
It was some time before he found the chance to make his way to the spot unobserved, but when he finally got there he found to his intense relief that everything seemed just as it had the night before when they had fled before the approach of the second mate.
The extra tarpaulin, which he had replaced with careful carelessness in the bottom of the boat, looked just the same as it had the day before, when it had not hid their hope of escape.
Bobby went to work with renewed hope. The hours that stretched between him and dark seemed an endless procession, but he knew that the best way to make them pass quickly was to throw himself into the work at hand with all his heart.
This he did, to the apparent gratification of Captain Garrish. It seemed to Bobby that there was less suspicion in the eyes of the skipper when they turned his way.
Perhaps, he thought, with an inward grin, their quiet attitude of the last few days, as if they had become resigned to a hard fate, was having its effect at last. Captain Garrish was beginning to think them harmless.
The second mate watched them less intently too, and the boys took advantage of the fact to send wireless messages back and forth.
They were so full of excitement and eagerness to start on their adventure that Bobby wondered how the keen eyes of Captain Garrish could fail to notice it.