He scanned the barren-looking coast, with its inhospitable sand dunes and melancholy-colored grass, with the sea birds wheeling and screaming above.
"Humph! Not much choice, apparently. I guess I'll pull just inside of that little point yonder, and then strike out across the country. I'll have to trust to luck to find somebody who'll give me a hand."
Half an hour later Ned pulled the small boat ashore and abandoned it.
When he landed he had cherished some hopes of finding a fisherman's hut, or "beachcomber's" dwelling behind the rampart of sand dunes. But no trace of even such primitive habitations met his eye. Salt meadows, threaded by muddy, sluggish creeks, lay inland, and beyond was rising ground dotted with clumps of woodland.
This looked hopeful. Determined to keep pegging along to the uttermost that was in him, Ned struck out across the salt meadows.
It was harder work than he had thought. Under the hot sun the miasmic salt land steamed and perspired. Rank odors arose, and the muddy creeks steamed. Once or twice he had to wade through the foul water courses, and, at such times myriads of bloated-looking crabs, that had been sunning themselves, scuttled, with splashes, into the water.
To add to his discomfort, as the sun grew higher, millions of black flies and stinging midges arose to plague him. They settled on him in swarms. Every time Ned wiped out a legion of the tormentors that had settled on his face, his countenance bore a red smudge. By the time he had—he hardly knew how—traversed this bad bit of country and found himself on a dusty white highroad, Ned was scarcely a presentable-looking object. Mud, from the creeks he had waded, caked his legs; his face was red and bloody from the onslaughts of the insects. His clothes were tattered from his fight on the sloop, and, altogether, he was not an object to inspire confidence.
To add to his misfortunes, he had no money, and Ned knew enough of the world to know that a lad in his condition, tattered and penniless, does not, as a rule, excite any feeling but suspicion. However, when about half a mile further on he came to a small house nestling among rose vines and creepers, he walked bravely up to the door and knocked.
A prim-looking old maid, in a checked apron, opened the door. As soon as her eyes fell on Ned she uttered a shrill scream and slammed the door with an exclamation of alarm and indignation.
"Get along with you, you tramp!" she cried.