Captain Jack refreshed himself with a pull at the Spring Tonic bottle; and started all over. A newer piece of hawser was produced, and the skiff despatched once more on its laborious errand. The loose end was finally picked up and knotted, and the capstan started again. But no better success followed, as soon as the full strain came upon it, the rope burst asunder in a new place. After this they went around the other side of the island and tried there. Each attempt consumed an hour or more, but time is nothing in the North.
At five o'clock, after the failure of the fourth attempt, Captain Jack threw up his hands, and turned the Aurora's nose down-stream. The little boat, which had sulked and hung back in the rapids all day, picked up her heels, and hustled down with the current, like a wilful child that obtains its own way at last.
Garth, in dismay, hastened to Captain Jack.
"Where are we going?" he demanded.
Captain Jack cocked an eye, and said with his air of gloomy fatalism: "The Landing's the only place for me."
Garth became hot under the collar, as he always did in dealing with the pessimistic skipper. "But we're only fifteen miles from the Warehouse!" he cried.
"Might as well be fifteen hundred," said Captain Jack, "for all I can get you there."
"Is there no house anywhere near?"
The skipper looked at him with gloomy scorn. "Say, do you think you're in a rural neighbourhood?" he inquired.
"I asked you a question," Garth repeated. "Is there any one living near here?"