“Bully talk!” said Josh, hastening after George and Jack, leaving Nick to amble along in the rear.
Clarence knew how to handle his boat with considerable skill; and once he drew close in, he was able to see how the ground lay. Those on shore also directed him as best they could; and the net result was that the Flash finally shot around the point, arriving in the little sheltered bay that a kind nature seemed to have provided for just such emergencies.
As Jack had more than once said, could they but look back hundreds of years, no doubt they would find that it had sheltered fleets of Indian canoes many a time, when the storm king rode the waves of the Great Lake.
When the Flash had been moored safely, her crew came ashore. Joe Brinker was looking a bit sullen, as though he did not much fancy the idea of accepting aid from these fellows, whom he had always looked upon as enemies. But Clarence walked straight up to Jack, holding out his hand.
“I say it’s mighty decent of you, Stormways, to throw us a line this way,” he declared, with considerable feeling. “I admit I was badly rattled, and thought we were in for a wreck. Neither of us glimpsed this opening here, and we’d sure have swept by, if you hadn’t signalled. I’m sorry now I ever—”
“Let by-gones be forgotten while we’re here, Clarence,” spoke up Jack. “See, the storm is whooping things up out there now, and it’s just as well you’re not on the lake.”
Clarence did look, and shuddered at what he saw; for it was not a pleasant spectacle, with the lightning flashes, and the heaving billows, seen through the flying spray that even reached them by the tents.
“Get busy, fellows!” George called. “Carry everything inside. Yes, take that pan of fish, and the coffee, Nick. I guess our callers are hungry, and will be glad of a bite. Quick now, for here she comes with a rush!”
Hardly had they found shelter, and the flaps of the tents been secured, when down the rain pelted, to the accompaniment of the most tremendous thunder crashes any of them had ever heard; while the fierce wind tried its best to tear the canvas shelters from over their heads.
But the work had been well done, and the tents stood, though wobbling more or less under the fierce onset of the wind.