Mack continued to pull his oar. Five minutes later, the boat took in a sea on the windward side, which filled it half full. Dory had been wet through in the first of it, and he was considering the probability of being drowned with his arms tied behind him so that he could do nothing to help himself.
"Pull steady!" called Angy, apparently undismayed by the situation, as he took the bucket in the stern, and began to bail out the boat.
"What's the use of pulling?" cried Mack, though he was sailor enough to know that the boat was likely to fall off into the trough of the sea if he ceased to use his oar. "It is getting worse and worse every fathom you go ahead, Angy."
"I can't help it if it is: we are in for it now, and we can't come about if we want to do so," replied the chief, who was beginning to have a little more respect for fresh-water waves.
"We can't stand this," interposed Chuck, who had been nursing his wrath in silence. "We had better be taken than drowned."
"I don't think so," answered Angy. "I will keep her away a little so that she will run before it, and we shall do very well. This blow comes from the southward, and it won't last long."
"It will last long enough to drown the whole of us," shouted Mack, loud enough to be heard above the roar of the tempest. "If you don't do something to ease her off, I shall stop rowing."
"If you don't mean to obey orders, Mack, say so; and you know I have a revolver in my pocket," said the chief.
"And I have another," replied Mack.
"I told you that I was going to let her fall off, and run before it. What more do you want?" demanded Angy, disgusted at the mutinous conduct of the oarsmen.