Elsie found the painter of the life-boat coiled in its proper place. Soon she experienced a steady pull on the rope. Her little fleet was in motion. Gray began to help in the paddling. Ere long they came under the influence of the tide, and she heard the ripple of the water against the planks of the boat. Then Suarez called a halt and a parley.
It would be far better, he advised, to use the oars in the heavy boat than attempt to tow it across the strong current from a canoe. They would gain time and be safer. So they climbed into the life-boat, but continued to tow the canoes.
And now they saw the mast-head light of the Kansas. Boyle had also caused the side lights to be slung to davits, and the white, red, and green lamps made a triangle in the obscurity, though its base seemed to be strangely near sea level. Even a big vessel like the Kansas shrinks to small proportions when she is a mile or more distant at night. She becomes indivisible, a mere atom in the immensity of the black waters; it demands an effort of the imagination to credit her with wide decks, streets of cabins, and cavernous holds. In one respect the exhibition of the port and starboard lights served them most excellently. Guanaco Hill was directly astern of the ship; they had absolutely no trouble in maintaining a straight line for their destination, all that was necessary being to keep the mast-head light in the exact center of the green and red points.
Suarez, somewhat weak from his knock on the head over night, was not equal to the strain of continued exertion, so Elsie and Gray took two oars each, and allowed their companion to rest. When, judging by the surrounding hills, they were half way across the inlet, Gray stooped low in the boat, struck a match, and looked at his watch. It was long after one o’clock! There could be no doubt whatever that the dawn would find them far from the ship, no matter how fortunate they might be in their further adventures.
It was well for Elsie that she had learnt how to scull when in her teens, and that her muscles were in fair condition owing to her skill at tennis. Even so, she feared that she could never hold out against the sustained stress of that pull across the bay. The heavy boat, intended to be rowed by six men, had the added burthen of four canoes. It was back-breaking work; but she neither faltered nor sighed until Suarez said:
“Let me take your place now, señorita. In ten minutes we shall be at the mouth of the creek, though heaven only knows how we shall find it.”
He did not exaggerate in thus expressing his fear. Time and again they neared the shore, only to hear the tidal swell breaking heavily on the rocks. The lights of the Kansas, fully three miles away, could only tell them that they were in the neighborhood of the place where Courtenay had last been seen in this identical boat. The least divergence from the line given by the position of the ship meant a difference of hundreds of yards at such a distance, and there was an ominous lightening of the gloom, accompanied by a dimming of the stars, when Gray hit on the idea that the powerful current had probably carried them a good deal southward of the point they were aiming at. He suggested that they should boldly pull a quarter of a mile or so against the tide and then try their luck. Their progress, of course, became slower than ever, and Elsie began to despair that they would ever find the mouth of the stream which ran through the cleft in the hill, when she suddenly saw the luminous crescents which heralded the sunrise over the inner mountain range. They could not be visible unless there was a break in the cliffs in that locality.
“Pull in now,” she whispered tensely, and, with a little further effort, they found that the boat was traveling not against but with the tide, which was flooding a small offshoot of the main estuary.
Precaution became not only useless but impossible. They were all worn out. Nothing but the most inflexible determination on the part of Elsie and Gray, eked out by a certain desponding fear of both of them felt by Suarez, had sustained them thus far. They went on, and on; they swept rapidly into the jaws of a precipitous defile, the lofty crests on either hand coming momentarily nearer against the brightening sky. It did not seem credible that this sheer cut through the heart of a gigantic hill could continue for more than a few yards, nor that anything save a bird could find foothold on its steep sides. Yet the current flowed smoothly onwards, through a wealth of vegetation which clung precariously to every ledge and natural escarpment.
Joey, embarrassed by his gag, nevertheless managed to emit a warning growl. Then the boat crashed into a canoe, and a hoarse yell of alarm came from beneath the lowermost trees, whose dense foliage flung a pall over the water. Gray was seized with an inspiration. He grasped the canoe as it bumped along the gunwale, and held it down on one side until it filled and sank. He sent another, and yet a third, guzzling to the bottom before the outburst of raucous cries from both banks showed there were Indians here in some force.