“Look at that sea, Hal,” he said. “The launch wouldn’t do a thing but fill up with water by the time we’d made the point there. And as for the Crystal Spring, well, I guess she’d make harbor finally, but she’s no heavy weather boat and I don’t fancy trying to sail her today. Maybe it’ll clear up by afternoon.”
“What can we do here, though?” asked Hal dismally.
“Dig,” replied Bee. “It’s a dandy day for digging; cool and without any glare to hurt your eyes. We can get a lot done today.”
“We can, can we? Well, I don’t intend to freeze to death out there,” replied Hal rebelliously. “I’m sick of digging, anyway.”
“You’ll be lot warmer digging than you will sitting here,” laughed Jack. “Come on and get up an appetite for dinner, Hal.”
But Hal refused and they left him hugging the fire, with a blanket over his shoulders. Jack took the pick and Bee seized a shovel and they made the dirt fly. It was really the only way to keep warm, as Jack had said. They were just finishing the first trench when Hal joined them.
“A fellow could freeze to death up there,” he muttered, picking up the second shovel. “What’ll I do, Bee?”
After that the work went merrily and Hal soon forgot his ill-temper. They finished the second trench by noon and then Bee suggested having a swim. And a glorious battle with the breakers they had! To dive through a six-foot comber and ride back to the beach on the crest of another is rare sport and splendidly conducive to the cultivation of appetites. At dinner even Hal agreed that so far they had had a bully time and he said no more about returning to Greenhaven that day. They went back to digging about two and managed to excavate most of the third trench before the wind, which was growing harder and harder every hour, drove them back to shelter. They saw to the guy-ropes and pegs, as Jack pointed out that it wasn’t pleasant to have your tent blown down on top of you; gathered a new store of wood and retired to their inside, watching the cloud-wrack go sailing overhead and the waves dashing into spray against Toller’s Rock. A sea-going tug passed a mile out, making hard weather and shipping water at every plunge. They watched her until she had rolled herself out of sight behind the spray-drenched headland. By four o’clock the wind was little short of a young hurricane, as Jack expressed it, and the tent was rocking and swaying. The wind rushed under the flaps and inflated the canvas until it threatened to sail into the air like a balloon. Jack began to look anxious.
“I think I’ll go down and see how the sloop’s getting along,” he announced. “It looks to me as though she was a little farther up than she was. I’ve got another anchor aboard and I guess I’d better drop it.”
The others volunteered to accompany him and they went staggering down the slope to the wharf, clutching at their caps and stumbling over bushes under the rude buffets of the wind. The river was running high, with masses of driftwood and froth piled along the margin. The Corsair had swung in amongst the spiles and was apparently trying to rub her varnish off, while the dory—