“Did ye git the raft across?” he asked anxiously, as Bob jumped from the boat.
“Sure and I feared as mooch,” he said, after Bob had told him that the raft was beached on Sugar Island. “It’s too bad, so it is, but we got another one ready ter be towed afore the storm struck, but it’s meself as thought as how we were goin’ ter lose it entirely fer awhile when the wind was blowin’ the hardest. But we managed ter hold her and yer kin start the first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, we’ll have to let those logs rest there till we get some started down the river,” Bob said, as he glanced up at the sky. “I guess it’ll be a good day tomorrow and I don’t think the boom broke so I guess they won’t scatter any.”
It was intensely dark in the bunk house when Bob awoke. It was so unusual for him to wake up during the night that for a moment he lay wondering what had disturbed him. All was still except for a variety of snores from members of the crew, but he was used to them and knew that they were not responsible. A glance at the luminous face of his watch told him that it was but a little past two o’clock. He turned over and settled himself to go to sleep again, when suddenly he realized that he was very thirsty.
Pulling a small flashlight from beneath his pillow, he quietly slipped from the bunk and stole softly across the room toward the door which opened into the kitchen.
“Of course the pail is empty,” he muttered a moment later. “Well, that means that I’ve got to get dressed and go out to the pump. I can’t go to sleep till I get a drink, that’s sure.”
So stealing quietly back to his bunk, he quickly: drew on his clothes and a moment later the front door had closed quietly behind him.
The pump from which they obtained drinking water was close to the office building, some three hundred yards from the bunk house, and almost half that distance from the lake. It was not nearly as dark as in the early part of the night, as the moon was shining through the light clouds making it possible to see for some little distance.
Just before he reached the pump an opening in the woods gave him a view of the wharf.
“Well, what do you know about that?” he said aloud, as he came to a sudden stop. “Where in the world is the Comet?” and the next moment he was running rapidly down the path toward the lake.