"Of course he isn't," cried Joe. "We'll find him in a few minutes. He must be somewhere near by, and he's sleeping so sound that he don't hear us. You know how hard it is to wake him up."
"Tom is a first-rate swimmer, and if he has spilled himself out of his canoe, and she has sunk, he has swum ashore," said Charley. "My opinion is that we had better stay just where we are until daylight, and then look for him along the shore. He's worth a dozen drowned fellows, wherever he is."
Charley's advice was taken, and the boys waited for daylight as patiently as they could. Daylight—or rather dawn—came in the course of an hour, but not a glimpse of the missing canoe did it afford. The tide had already changed, and the top of the treacherous sand-spit was once more above water, and not very far distant from the canoes. As soon as it was certain that nothing could be seen of Tom on the water, his alarmed comrades paddled toward the north shore, hoping that they might find him, and possibly his canoe, somewhere at the foot of the rocks.
They were again unsuccessful. While Joe sailed up and down along the shore, the two other boys paddled close to the rocks, and searched every foot of space where it would have been possible for a canoe to land, or a canoeist to keep a footing above the water. They had searched the shore for a full mile above the sand-spit, and had paddled back nearly half the way, when they were suddenly hailed; and looking up, saw Tom standing on a ledge of rock ten feet above the water.
"Are you fellows going to leave me here all day?" demanded Tom. "I began to think you were all drowned, and that I'd have to starve to death up here."
"HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET UP THERE?"
"How in the world did you get up there?" "Where were you when we came by here half an hour ago?" "Where's your canoe?" "Are you all right?" These and a dozen other questions were hurled at Tom by his excited and overjoyed friends.
"I was asleep until a few minutes ago," replied Tom. "I got up here when the tide was high, and I had hard work to do it, too."
"What's become of your canoe? Is she lost?" asked Harry.