“I shouldn’t. However, I’m sorry I put my foot in it,” nodded Ned.
“You needn’t be. See! We are running out of the swell now.”
The steamer, soon coming under the lee of the islands, was steaming into Fitzhugh Sound, where dangerous shoals menace the navigators 32of these enchanting waters. Captain Petersen was now occupying the little bridge just forward of the pilot house. His face was grim and set. The good fellow was no longer present–it was now the master, bent upon attending to his duties.
The sound is a slender waterway, extending directly northward fully thirty miles, more entrancing, it seemed to the boys, than any other water over which they had sailed. The Pony Rider Boys were having a glorious passage into the far north where they were going in search of new adventure. They were bound for the wildest and most remote section of Uncle Sam’s domain, where they hoped to spend the summer months.
Now that the waters had become more quiet, Stacy Brown slowly dragged himself from the shadow of the life-boat and stood gripping the gunwale. After getting his head leveled somewhat he walked unsteadily to his companions who were leaning on the steamer’s rail regarding him with smiling faces.
“Sick?” questioned Tad.
“No; merely ailing,” replied the fat boy.
“I wouldn’t be a landlubber,” jeered Rector.
“You would, if you were in my place,” muttered Stacy.
On through a panorama of changing scenes 33and colors sailed the “Corsair.” In Finlayson Channel, some distance farther on, the forest that lined the shores was a solid mountain of green on each side, the trees growing down to the water. Here the reflections were so brilliant that the dividing line between shore and water was difficult for the untrained eye to make out. The boys seemed to be gazing upon an optical illusion. From the water’s edge the mountains rose sheer to a great height, their distant peaks capped with snow glistening in the morning sunlight, while glacial streams flashed over the open spaces on the mountain sides.