"That's a fine way to talk," spoke Tom sternly. "When you're in a scrape the only thing to do is to try to get out of it as best you can."
"That's the stuff," assented Jack, "but if we only had something to eat, I'd feel a little better."
"Maybe there's something under that stern seat," suggested Tom, indicating the place he meant. Sandy raised the seat, which tilted back disclosing a locker, and gave a cry of delight. Two tins of beef, some packages of crackers and a big pie reposed there. Evidently Bill Rainier, the pilot, believed in carrying lunch with him when he went out in a fog.
"Jiminy crickets," roared Jack, as one after another Sandy held up the eatables, "just think, those have been there all this time! Let's eat and forget our troubles."
"Better go slow," admonished Tom, no less pleased, however, than the others at this unexpected good fortune.
Jack cut open the meat tins with his knife and they fell to eating as they discussed their situation. They made a good meal, not forgetting liberal portions of the pie. But the lack of water troubled them. Crackers and salt beef with dried raisin pie do not make a lunch calculated to allay thirst. But they were in no mood to complain. The food alone heartened them wonderfully and put them in a mood to face their dilemma less despairingly.
Little by little the waves began to grow smaller. The current grew less swift.
"We must have reached some place where the channel widens and the tide can spread out," observed Tom, noticing this. "Now if the fog would only lift, maybe we could get ashore some place."
"Let's try the oars again," suggested Jack.
"That's a fine idea if we only knew where to row to," rejoined Tom. "I'm afraid we'll have to drift till the fog lifts. I've no more idea which way our course lies than the man in the moon."