Not a sail could be seen in either direction, and Vance announced that there was no land in sight, when Ned exclaimed as he pointed about four points to the southward of the course they were then heading:
“Look over there! What do you make that to be?”
Vance gazed earnestly in the direction indicated, and after a long scrutiny replied in a careless tone:
“Nothing but a cloud.”
“It’s land! There’s no question about it. Call Roy, will you?”
“What’s that for?”
“We’ll see what he thinks about trying to make it. It is not in the direction where we expected to see anything of the kind, but it strikes me we should do our best to reach it, if for no other purpose than to find out where we are.”
Roy was soon in the pilot-house, and after looking at what to an inexperienced eye appeared nothing more than a cloud, as Vance had suggested, he decided Ned was correct.
“What do you think of trying to make it?”
“Can you do so with this wind?”