“That looks all right, but there’s not very much of it; and the bag Hank brought up isn’t large,” he said gloomily.
“You want to sew it up before you lose the stuff,” advised Moran, sitting down on the box. “Now, if there’s anything to be fixed, we had better get it settled. She’s carrying all the sail she wants and I can’t leave her long.”
“Are we to go back?” Bethune asked. “We haven’t emptied the strong-room, and what we have left behind may be genuine.”
“Can’t do it,” Moran said grimly. “The way the wind is, the drift ice will be packed solid along the shore to-morrow.”
They sat silent for a while. There was only one thing to be done, but they shrank from indicating it and owning their defeat. At last Jimmy made a gesture of resignation.
“Square away; our course is south,” he said.
Moran nodded silently and went up through the scuttle, and Jimmy threw himself down on the locker while Bethune lighted his pipe. Neither of them spoke until they heard a rattle of blocks and the rush of water along the lee side showed that the Cetacea had swung round.
“Our plans for the winter won’t materialize,” Bethune said; “we’ll be glad to put up at a dollar hotel if we’re lucky enough to get taken on at a mill. However, we can talk about this to-morrow; I don’t feel quite up to it now.”
After a curt sign of agreement, Jimmy pulled a damp sail over him and, although he had not expected to do so, presently went to sleep.
When Moran wakened him to take his turn at the helm it was blowing hard and bitterly cold. Settling himself as far as he could in the shelter of the coaming, he began his dreary watch. Long, white-topped seas raced after the sloop, ranging upon her weather quarter, while the spray she flung aloft beat in heavy showers on Jimmy’s slicker. He could scarcely see her length ahead, and knew that he was running a serious risk if there was ice about; but he thought she would not be much safer if he hove her to, and, fixing his eyes on the compass, he let her go.