The cruise of the Canoe Club

by W. L. Alden

Charley did not lose his presence of mind. He shouted to Harry to run up his sail and keep his canoe out of the way of the seas, and then he busied himself shaking out the reef of his main-sail, so that he could set the whole sail. The moment the canoe felt the strain of her canvas she began to rush through the water in spite of her great weight, and no more seas came aboard her. Steering with one hand, Charley bailed with his hat with such energy that he soon freed the canoe of water. Meanwhile he rapidly overtook Harry, and reached the reeds, while the Sunshine was a quarter of a mile behind him.

Tom and Joe were found sitting in their canoes and suffering the pangs of hunger. Charley put on dry clothes, while Harry prepared a lunch of dried beef and crackers, after which the canoeists resigned themselves as cheerfully as they could to spending the rest of the afternoon and the night in the reeds. It was not a pleasant place, but the wind kept the mosquitoes away, and the boys managed to fall asleep soon after sunset. The wind died out during the night, and the boys found, the next morning, that only a few rods below the place where they had spent the night there was an open channel by which they could easily have reached the shore. This was rather aggravating, and it increased the disgust with which they remembered Lake St. Peter and its reed-lined shores.

The voyage down the St. Lawrence seemed monotonous after the excitement of running the Magog rapids, and the various adventures of the sail down the Richelieu. The St. Lawrence has very little shade along its banks, for, owing to the direction in which it runs, the sun shines on the water all day long. The weather was exceedingly hot while the boys were on the river, and on the third day after leaving Lake St. Peter they suffered so greatly that they were afraid to stay on the water lest they should be sunstruck. Going ashore on the low sandy bank, they were unable to find a single tree or even a hillock large enough to afford any shade. They thought of drawing the canoes ashore and sitting in the shade of them, but there was not a breath of air stirring, and the very ground was so hot that it almost scorched their feet. Half a mile away on a meadow they saw a tree, but it was far too hot to think of walking that distance. They decided at last to get into their canoes and to paddle a few rods farther to a place where a small stream joined the river, and where they hoped to find the water somewhat cooler for bathing.

On reaching the mouth of the little stream the bows of the canoes were run ashore, so that they would not float away, and the boys, hastily undressing, sprung into the water. They had a delightful bath, and it was not until they began to feel chilly that they thought of coming out and dressing. Tom was the first to go ashore, and as he was wading out of the water he suddenly felt himself sinking in the sand. Harry and Joe attempted to land a few yards from the place where Tom was trying to drag his feet out of the clinging sand, and they too found themselves in the same difficulty. Harry at once perceived what was the matter, and, making frantic efforts to get to the shore, cried out to his comrades that they were caught in a quicksand.

The struggles made by the three boys were all in vain. When they tried to lift one foot out of the sand the other foot would sink still deeper. It was impossible for them to throw themselves at full length on the quicksand, for there were nearly two feet of water over it, and they were not close enough together to give one another any assistance. By the time Charley fully understood the peril they were in, Tom had sunk above his knees in the sand, and Joe and Harry, finding that they could not extricate themselves, were waiting, with white faces and trembling lips, for Charley to come to their help.

Charley knew perfectly well that if he ventured too near the other boys he would himself be caught in the quicksand, and there would be no hope that any of them could escape. Keeping his presence of mind, he swum to the stern of one of the canoes, set it afloat, and pushed it toward Tom so that the latter could get hold of its bow. He then brought two other canoes to the help of Joe and Harry, and when each of the three unfortunate canoeists was thus furnished with something to cling to he climbed into his own canoe.

“What are we to do now?” asked Harry.

“Just hold on to your canoes till I can tow them out into the stream. You can’t sink while you hang on to them.”

“Won’t the canoes sink with us?” asked Tom.

“Not a bit of it. You wouldn’t sink yourselves if you could lie down flat on the quicksand. I was caught in a quicksand once, and that’s the way I saved myself.”