And in all that time they may have only covered some four miles, or possibly five; for no effort was made to drive the Comfort at even half speed.
“Looks like it,” Jack replied, after a quick survey. “But how is it we didn’t glimpse it before?”
“I think a point of rocks must stick out between, and we’ve just opened the pocket,” George replied, in a whisper.
Of course Jack had immediately shut off the power, so that old reliable Comfort stopped her forward movement, lying there on the dark waters like a log; for not a light of any description did they carry aboard.
“Do we go ashore now?” asked Josh, softly; for all of them had been warned not to speak above a whisper from the time they started forth on their errand of mercy.
“Yes,” Jack replied. “That’s one reason we’ve been keeping so close in. I’ll drop into the dinky, and use the paddle. Foot by foot I can pull the motor boat to shore, and then we’ll land.”
“How lucky there’s not a breath of wind,” Herb remarked, as he helped Jack draw the small tender alongside, and then crawl over the side.
Presently Jack was working away, having attached the painter of the boat to a cleat at the bow of the Comfort. His method of using the paddle insured utter silence. Had it been an expert hunter, moving up on a deer that was feeding on the lily pads along the border of a Canada stream, he could hardly have manipulated that little spruce blade with more care.
And so, foot by foot, the motor boat was coaxed in nearer the rock-bound shore. When Jack had finally succeeded in accomplishing his end he next sought some place where those still aboard could disembark, and the Comfort be tied up while they went about the business that had brought them there.