The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune

by John Henry Goldfrap

“Evidently the Betsy Jane was caught by the tide, when it turned, and carried out to sea,” he thought, “and then, when the wind got up, she drifted still faster. I wonder if her mooring rope broke or if it was cut—guess I’ll take a look.”

The boy dragged inboard the end of the mooring line that still hung over the bow. One look at it was enough. The clean cut strands showed conclusively that it had been severed, just above the water line, by a sharp knife. The fact that the Daniels could not know that any one would come on board after they slashed the line did not make their act any less heinous in Harry’s eyes. It had been their deliberate intention to set the schooner adrift, and they had succeeded only too well in their act of spite.

“Whatever will they be thinking on the island when they discover all this?” thought Harry with a low groan. “They’ll imagine that I’m dead, or at least that some fatal accident has befallen me, and, worst of all, they have no boat to use to reach the mainland. They are just as much prisoners as I am.”

Sharp pangs of hunger now began to assail the lad, and he recollected, with a thankful heart, that on board the motor boat there were the remains of a lunch they had taken ashore with them on their expedition the previous day. There was also a keg of water. Harry lost no time in descending the gangway and making his way to the locker where the food had been stored. First, however, he made a foray on the water keg. Taking out the stopper he found that it was only half full, but he slaked his thirst gratefully, taking care to use as small a quantity of the fluid as possible. He knew that before long the water might be precious indeed.

In the locker he found the remnants of the lunch. As he consumed the scraps of bread and cheese, and a small hunk of corned beef, he recalled with what light hearts they had fallen to the meal of which he was now devouring the remains. The recollection almost overcame him. With a strong effort the boy choked back a sob and formed a grim determination not to dwell upon his miserable situation more than was possible. He felt that the main thing was to keep a clear head.

There was some spare rope on board the hulk, and with this Harry made the fastenings of the launch more secure, leading one end of the rope on board the schooner itself, and making it fast to a cleat. He felt that the craft would be more safe if attached thus than would have been the case had he depended on the gangway alone.

This done, he took a look about him. He had had a vague hope that he might sight a ship of some sort, but the ocean was empty as a desert. Not a sail or a smudge of smoke marred the horizon. All this time the wind had been steadily freshening, and Harry judged that the schooner must be drifting before it quite fast. The inclined superstructure naturally added to her “windage” and made her go before the gale more rapidly. The sea, too, was piling up in great, glistening, green water rows, which looked formidable indeed. But so far the Betsy Jane had wallowed along right gallantly, only shipping a shower of spray occasionally when a big sea struck her obliquely on the bow.

“If only I had plenty of food and water,” thought Harry, “this would be nothing more than a good bit of adventure, but——”

In accordance with his resolution not to dwell on the more serious aspects of his predicament he dismissed this side of the case from his mind. But as the day wore on, and he grew intolerably thirsty, the thought of what might be his fate, if he did not fall in with some vessel, beset his mind more and more, to the exclusion of all else. In the afternoon, as closely as he could judge the time, he took another drink from the fast-diminishing supply in the keg. He noticed, with an unpleasant shock, that the fluid was growing alarmingly lower. Before he took the draught he had cleaned up the remaining crumbs left in the locker, and was now absolutely without food.

The rest of that afternoon he passed watching the empty sea for some sign of a ship, but not a trace of one could he discover. Utterly disheartened he watched the sun set in a blaze of crimson and gold. The sunset lay behind him, and Harry knew by this that he was drifting east at a rapid rate. Just how rapid he had, of course, no means of calculating. Of one thing he was thankful—the sea had not increased, and the wind appeared to have fallen considerably with the departure of daylight.