Sandy awoke to the fact that perhaps after all there was a glimmer of hope.
"Oh! if you only can, Bob!" he cried, bestirring himself.
Was there anything he could do to help? He thought of leaning over the side of the canoe, and using his poor hands to dash at the water, on whose swiftly moving bosom they were being swept along.
Useless, worse than useless, for in so doing he might only serve to weaken Bob's furious efforts, by shaking the frail and almost sinking boat.
His gun—could he not do something with the broad shoulder butt to urge the canoe around? Sandy was a creature of impulse. He seldom waited to give a second thought to anything, once it found lodgment in his brain.
So he made a swoop forward, snatching the musket from the place where it had been fastened before the voyage was begun. The cord held, but with a second fierce jerk he broke it.
Then, with a shout in which new hope had a part, Sandy dipped the stock of the old gun deep in the river, and swept it around toward the stern.
Bob realized what he was doing. He could not look around, of course, since each second was priceless just then. Perhaps he understood from some trifling change in the movement of the canoe, when he drew his dripping blade out for another mad plunge, that a new element had taken hold.
And it may have even spurred the brave lad to doing better than before, if such a thing could be.
They were now rapidly approaching the lower end of the island. Bob's eyes were fastened eagerly on that point. The rain had ceased temporarily, and he could see plainly. How he wished he had examined the cross currents there more closely at the time they were leisurely paddling up stream!