Lindstrom bustled down the ladder, and a handful of drenched men set about getting the boat out. It was not an easy task, for there were times when the Shasta rolled her rail in, and the boat swung in upon her deck as often as over the sea. Then she drove against the streaming plates with a crash, and a big gray comber that swept round the Shasta's stern half-filled her as they lowered her with a run, but the men dropped into her, and she reeled clear with the oars splashing any way on the back of the next one. Jimmy set his lips as he watched her, and pressing down his telegraph sent the Shasta half-speed ahead in a big sweep, until she came up steaming dead slow once more under the Adelaide's lee. He waited there ten anxious minutes until the boat drove down on him bringing a line with her.
Somehow they hove her in not greatly damaged, and the rattling winch afterward hauled a big steel hawser across; but the land was clearly visible, a dark streak of rock that rose above a haze of flying spray, when Jimmy rang for full-speed again. He knew by the chart that it was an island of some extent with a wide sound between it and the next one where he might find shelter, provided he could hold the Adelaide off the rocks that long. This, however, appeared very doubtful in the meanwhile, for it was evident that the larger vessel was rapidly dragging him to leeward. It was simply a question whether she would drive ashore before he towed her around the point he could dimly see on the contracted horizon, but it was a somewhat momentous one. If he failed, the sea that spouted on the shoals would make short work of her.
It became evident that there was a capable helmsman at the Adelaide's wheel, for she crawled along well in line astern, with but little of the wild sheering from the course which in such cases is apt to part the stoutest hawser; but Jimmy grew tensely anxious as the next hour slipped by. The beach was rapidly growing plainer, but the head beyond which there was shelter was still apparently a long way off, and it was not an inviting prospect that unrolled itself to lee. The gray rock, smeared by the whiteness of flung-up spray, dropped sharply to the wide line of tumbling foam, and above it low-flying shreds of cloud blurred the wisps of climbing trees. Still, the head was rising all the time, and the Shasta's engines pounding steadily, except when her screw shot clear, as it frequently did. Another hour went by, and the tension grew worse to bear when a jagged and fissured slope of rock rose under their lee-bow scarcely half a mile away. Beyond it stretched a dim vista of more rock and reedy pines that shut in the sound.
"We could swing her in if there were no tide," said Jimmy harshly. "As it is, the stream is setting us down on the point together, but I'll hold on until she strikes. There's no use worrying Fleming. He can't do any more."
Lindstrom, who glanced at the streak of flame in the dingy cloud that blew down from the slanted funnel, made a sign of concurrence, and Jimmy gripped the bridge rails hard as he gazed ahead. He could see the white smear of tideway that streamed around the head, and the gray wall of rock seemed forging back toward him through the midst of it. The sea hurled itself against its feet and crumbled into a white spouting and streaky wisps of foam that the stream swept away. Then he signed to the quartermaster, and gripping the whistle-lanyard flung out a sonorous blast of warning.
The Shasta's bows swung seaward a little further, and both vessels swept up the tideway toward the deadly slope of stone. It crept a trifle aft from the lee-bow while a narrow strip of water opened up ahead, and then Jimmy held his breath as the Adelaide took a sheer. She swung off at a tangent, rolling until a great slanted slope of rusty iron was clear on that side of her, while the Shasta's poop was held down by the strain on the hawser. A sea smote her on the weather side and veiled her in a cloud of flying spray, but Jimmy could dimly see a man flounder aft up to his knees in water with an axe on his shoulder. It was not the instrument an engineer would have chosen for cutting hard steel wire, but the axe is wonderfully effective in the hands of a Canadian, and the strain would part the rope if one strand were nicked. This was also in accordance with Lindstrom's instructions, but Jimmy flung up a restraining hand.
"Hold on!" He hurled his voice through hollowed hands. "Drop the—thing! If we can't swing her clear we're going ashore with her."
He forgot what he owed the Shasta Company and what Anthea Merril had said to him, for the primitive man had come uppermost under the stress of conflict. Twining his hands in the whistle-lanyard, he hurled out a great blast that the rocks flung back through the turmoil of the tide, and then once more gripped the bridge rails hard, standing rigidly still, with grim wet face and a light in his eyes. For two more minutes the issue hung in the balance, and then, while a wider gap of water opened up ahead, the Adelaide swung back astern. In a few moments there was a hoarse, exultant clamor from both vessels, and the froth-swept rock slid away behind her. In front lay a stretch of less troubled water. Half an hour later the Shasta came around again in a big sweep, and when the anchors went down the two vessels lay rolling uneasily in comparative shelter.
Another hour had passed when Jimmy went off in the lifeboat, and was greeted by a cluster of bronzed men who stood about the Adelaide's gangway and insisted on shaking hands with him. Some of them also pounded his shoulders with hard fists, and though none of them expressed themselves very artistically, Jimmy understood what was implied by the offers of whisky that were thrust upon him. The genuine prospector, the man who, as they say in that country, gets there when he takes the gold-trail, is as a matter of fact usually a somewhat abstemious person and particular as to whom he drinks with; but these miners had made the Shasta's commander one of them and presented him with the freedom of the guild. It was in some respects as great a cause for gratification as if he had been made companion of an ancient order, for no man is admitted to that one who cannot prove that he possesses, among other qualifications, high courage and stubborn endurance. Their codes are not nicely formulated in the frozen wastes and the silent woods of the north, but it is as a rule the great primitive essentials that advance a man in his comrades' estimation there. Jimmy, however, waved the miners back.
"It ought to be quite clear, boys, that I can't drink with you all, especially as I've business with the skipper," he said. "Anyway, I'm pleased to feel I have your good-will."