V
A RATHER BAD NIGHT
During the next two or three days the expedition worked its way through the tangled maze of big and little waterways, stopping only at night, in order that they might the sooner reach a point where game was plentiful.
At last Cal, who knew more about the matter than any one else in the party, pointed out a vast forest-covered region that lay ahead, with a broad stretch of water between.
“We’ll camp there for a day or two,” he said, “and get something besides sea food to eat. There are deer there and wild turkeys, and game birds, while squirrels and the like literally abound. I’ve hunted there for a week at a time. It’s only about six miles from here, and there’s a good breeze. We can easily make the run before night.”
Tom, who had by that time learned to handle the boat fairly well for a novice, was at the tiller, and the others, a trifle too confident of his skill perhaps, were paying scant attention to what he was doing. The stretch of water they had to cross was generally deep, as the chart showed, but there were a few shoals and mud banks to be avoided. While the boys were eagerly listening to Cal’s description of the hunting grounds ahead, the boat was speeding rapidly, with the sail trimmed nearly flat, when there came a sudden flaw in the wind and Tom, in his nervous anxiety to meet the difficulty managed to put the helm the wrong way. A second later the dory was pushing her way through mud and submerged marsh grass. Tom’s error had driven her, head on, upon one of the grass covered mud banks.
Dick was instantly at work. Without waiting to haul the boom inboard, he let go the throat and peak halyards, and the sails ran down while the outer end of the boom buried itself in the mud.
“Now haul in the boom,” he said.
“Why didn’t you wait and do that first?” asked Tom, who was half out of his wits with chagrin over his blunder.
“Because, with the centre board up, if we’d hauled it in against the wind the boat would have rolled over and we should all have been floundering.”