“In the face and eyes of it?” gasped the trapper, looking dubious at the angry clouds, whose appearance was indeed most threatening. “Why don’t we stay here whar we’re safe?”
“Because we are not safe here. This is the most dangerous spot we could be in. The wind will blow directly on shore, and the waves will come rolling in here as high as the crosstrees. The first one that struck us would carry us out there in the woods.”
“Then, let’s take our shootin’ irons an’ go ashore,” said Dick. “I’d sooner fight the niggers than stay on this little boat and be drownded.”
“And what would we do with the schooner? Leave her to take care of herself? That’s a pretty idea, isn’t it? She would be smashed into kindling-wood on the beach, and then how would we ever get home again? No, no, Dick; we must take care of the vessel first, so we are going out where we shall have plenty of room. I wish we were out there now,” added Frank, anxiously, as he directed his gaze toward a high rocky promontory which jutted out into the water a mile in advance of them. “That point is a pretty long one, and if we don’t weather it before the storm breaks it will be good-bye, Stranger, and Sportsman’s Club, too.”
“Never fear,” exclaimed Uncle Dick, who happened to overhear this last remark. “We’ve got a capful of wind, and that is all we need to make an offing. Once off this lee-shore, we shall have plenty of room, unless we are blown up against the Ladrone Islands.”
“And about the time that happens, look out for pirates,” said Eugene.
“What’s them?” asked Dick.
“Oh, they are wild, lawless men, like Allen and Black Bill,” replied Eugene.
The trapper’s brow cleared at once. He was not afraid of lawless men, for he had met too many of them during his career on the plains. He was perfectly willing to meet anything that could be resisted by the weapons to which he had been accustomed from his earliest boyhood, but storms like this that was now approaching, and whales and “quids,” that could destroy a vessel, and elephants as large as a house, Dick did not want to see.
The Stranger was under sail in a very few minutes, and with all her canvas spread she began to move away from the dangerous shore under her lee. What little wind there was stirring was rapidly dying away, but it blew long enough to enable the little vessel to pass the threatening point which Frank so much dreaded, and then sail was quickly shortened, and every preparation made to meet the on-coming tempest.