When at length the propeller was hoisted in over the side Selkirk was on the verge of despair; for one of the phosphor bronze fans was so badly fractured that it was a marvel how the greater part of the blade had not been torn away.
"Yes, it's a bad job," asserted Captain Brookes, "but it cannot be helped. There's only one thing to be done, and that is to make for some secluded creek, take the fan ashore, and weld it. I don't think we can do better than make for Desolation Inlet."
[Illustration: CHAPTER XVI]
IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE PATAGONIANS
DESOLATION INLET is an unfrequented creek on the northern or Patagonian shores of the Magellan Straits. Save for the occasional visit of a hardy whaler the harbour is rarely occupied. The inlet well deserves its name. Imagine a tortuous channel of deep water, surrounded by lofty snow-clad mountains that tower to the height of 7,000ft., presenting the appearance of a Norwegian fjord without the beautifying effect of the foliage and pasture land in the intersecting valleys. For, with the exception of a few stunted pines and occasional patches of hardy, thorn-like scrub, vegetation does not exist.
It was early in September, or towards the end of the winter of the Southern Hemisphere, when the Olive Branch glided slowly up the placid waters of the creek. Although hardly a ripple disturbed the mirror-like surface, Desolation Inlet is subject to sudden storms that sweep down from the mountains with well-nigh irresistible force, so that their effect upon a slowly moving vessel was extremely dangerous.
Although the lead gave no depth at seventy fathoms during the first ten miles, Captain Brookes dared not proceed with more than a bare steerage way, owing to the extreme irregularity of the bottom of the badly charted harbour; and it was with undisguised relief that the order was given to let go in eight fathoms, with the shore less than two cables' length away on either hand.