He paddled harder and a small white wave lapped the canoe's bows. The sky was getting dark, and now the lines that streaked the lake were white, but the wind was astern and they were going fast. The glimmering reflections had vanished and the rocks ahead rose sharply from the leaden water. The point was some distance off, but Lister knew he must reach it soon.
A flash of forked lightning leaped from the sky and touched the lake, there was a long, rumbling peal, and then a humming noise began astern. Angry white ripples splashed about the canoe and lumps of hail beat Lister's head. Then, while the thunder rolled across the sky, the canoe swerved. It was blowing hard, the high bow and stern caught the wind, the strength was needed to hold her straight with the single paddle. If he brought her round, he could not paddle to windward, and to steer across the sea that would soon get up might be dangerous. They must make the point and land. He threw Ruth his jacket, for spray had begun to fly and the drops from the paddle blew on board.
"Put on the thing; I've got to work," he said.
In a few minutes his work was hard. Short, white waves rolled past, the canoe lurched and swerved, and Lister knew if she swung off across wind and sea she might capsize. He must keep her running and let the combers split against her pointed stern. The combers were getting large and their hissing tops surged by some height above the gunwale, but so long as he could keep her before them they would not come on board. When her bows went up she sheered, as if she meant to shoot across the hollow left by the sea that rolled by. He stopped her with a back-stroke and then drove hard ahead, for he must have speed to steer when the next sea came on. In the meantime, the lightning flickered about the lake and between the flashes all was nearly dark. The tops of the waves tossed against leaden cloud and he could hardly see the rocks for which he steered.
By and by, however, the point stood out close ahead. The trees on the summit bent in the wind; spray leaped about the bowlders where the white foam rolled. He must go round and find a landing to lee, but to go round he must cross the belt of breaking water, with the savage wind abeam. The canoe shipped some water, and riding in on a comber's crest, narrowly missed a rock that lifted its top for a moment out of the foam. Then Lister drove her in behind the point and helped Ruth to land on a gravel beach. Her eyes sparkled and he saw she had not been daunted.
"We're all right now, but we have got to stay until the storm blows out," he said.
They found shelter in a hollow of the cliff and sat among the driftwood while the rain that blotted out the lake drove overhead. The deluge did not reach them and the cold was going.
"You go back on Monday?" Ruth said at length.
Lister smiled with humorous resignation. "I must. The strange thing is, when I left my job before I was keen to get back. Now I'd rather stop and loaf."
"Then you were not bored at Winnipeg?"