During the night another violent squall sprang up on the treacherous surface of the lake, and again they had to battle desperately for their lives against wind and wave.
When the dawn broke one of the boats was missing. It was the one that had overturned and been righted. After looking vainly for it for some time Meinhold and Cody came to the conclusion that it had been sunk in the squall.
A few hours after dawn, in splendid weather, the shipwrecked party sighted the mainland.
CHAPTER XXXI.
JOE CONGO’S DIPLOMACY.
There was some reason for haste, for the fine weather did not promise to last long; heavy clouds rose in the west, which soon obscured the whole sky, and it became impossible, with neither sun nor stars to guide them, to keep anything near to a direct westward course, which they thought would take them to Fort McPherson.
Nor could they tell in which direction they varied from it; but shoreward they were sure they were going, though they no longer hoped to effect a landing very near the fort they were seeking.
Vainly they had looked for land during the seemingly long night, and when daylight at length revealed it a few miles distant they coasted it for several hours in the hope of discovering some traces of others of their comrades who might have escaped from the wreck of the missing boat.
Not succeeding in this, they landed about nine o’clock in the morning, to rest, and to make their breakfast with the scant remains of the food which they had taken with them; and of which there was enough left only to sharpen their appetites, not to satisfy them.