Again and again large volumes of water poured over the sides and had to be bailed out.
It seemed as though the night would never wear through, but at last it ended, and with the first rosy streaks of dawn the sea moderated somewhat.
The welcome sun revived the sinking spirits of the worn-out men in the boats, and they looked around eagerly for signs of land, but they could see none.
They had little or no knowledge of their location. They had been somewhere near the center of the lake when they were wrecked, but the only men who could have given them any exact idea of their bearings—the captain and the mate—were both dead.
Buffalo Bill, who had been looking around constantly, in accordance with his usual habit, suddenly exclaimed:
“Hello, what’s the matter with that boat? She’s going over, by thunder! Bad management there! See!”
There was no need to call attention to the foundering craft. Yells from a dozen voices in it did that. It was the biggest boat of the lot, and carried the greatest number of men.
Then the oval bottom of the boat was seen, with several men clinging to it for dear life, while others were struggling in the water, upborne by life preservers and floating like corks on the billows.
The capsized boat was perhaps about thirty or forty yards from the one in which Buffalo Bill was sitting, and the other was not much farther off.
Both came to her relief as speedily as possible, not without increased peril to themselves. This was still more augmented when some of the struggling swimmers came clinging to the sides of the boats and begging to be taken in.