Deprived of what assistance Sandy might have given him, Bob must shoulder the entire burden. Perhaps the other had not been doing much, but his weak efforts must surely have helped a little.
Bob instinctively moved back. This would give him greater power to swing the head of the dancing canoe toward the objective point; for the paddler in the stern usually commands the course of the boat better than his comrade placed in the bow, though the latter guards against collisions, where rocks or stumps abound.
The time was so frightfully short that whatever was done had to be carried out by sheer instinct, rather than reasoning.
Sandy, utterly exhausted, and with his poor heart almost broken because of this new catastrophe which could be laid to his eager clumsiness, had dropped back in the bottom of the canoe. Here he lay in several inches of water, so discouraged that he was for the moment utterly unmindful of what was going on around him.
Of course he knew that Bob was working like a frantic being to push the wavering bow just a little closer to the shore they were so rapidly skirting. But it was all useless. His blunder had spoiled their last hope, and now nothing remained but to take what came.
How wonderful it was to see how Bob arose to the occasion. His arms were working like flails in the hands of a thresher of grain. They sped backward and forward with a momentum that fairly bewildered the eyes of Sandy.
But alas! there was one stupendous drawback, one thing that seemed fated to undo all this splendid work which his gallant brother was putting into play. Sandy saw, and groaned in spirit; for that was where he might have saved the day had he not lost his grip on his paddle when the hungry waves snatched at it.
It was the lost motion that would ruin them. Fast though Bob was making his apparently tireless arms move, he could not keep up a constant movement. And between his strokes that ceaseless current would undo nearly every bit of good that had been accomplished by his efforts.
Had Sandy been able to insert his blade between, he might have held the canoe to what had been gained. And each time Bob would have won more and more inches.
And yet, despite this serious handicap, Bob was actually doing wonders. Surely they did not seem to be quite so far away from the shore as when they first came abreast of the long island!