The cruise of the Canoe Club

by W. L. Alden

In the course of the night he began to dream. He thought that he was a member of an expedition trying to reach the North Pole in canoes, and that he was sleeping on the ice. He felt that his feet and back were slowly freezing, and that a polar-bear was nudging him in the ribs occasionally, to see if he was alive and ready to be eaten. This was such an uncomfortable situation that Joe woke up, and for a few moments could not understand where he was.

The wind had gone down, the stars had come out, and the tide had come up. Joe was lying in a shallow pool of water, and his canoe, which was almost afloat, was gently rubbing against him. He sprung up and called to his companions. There was no answer. The fire was out, but by the starlight Joe could see that the whole sand-spit was covered with water, and that neither the other boys nor their canoes were in sight. The tide was still rising, and Joe’s canoe was beginning to float away, when he seized her, threw his blankets into her, and, stepping aboard, sat down, and was gently floated away.

Chapter XII.

JOE was alone on the St. Lawrence in the middle of the night, and with a sprained wrist, which nearly disabled him so far as paddling was concerned. Worse than this, his comrades had disappeared, and there could not be the slightest doubt that their canoes had floated away with them while they were sound asleep. What chance had he of finding them? How could he get ashore, with his sprained wrist; and what probability was there that the three boys thus carried away in their sleep would escape from their dangerous situation without any serious accident?

As these questions presented themselves to Joe his first impulse was to admit that he was completely disheartened and to burst into tears. He was, however, far too manly to yield to it, and he immediately began to think what was the best thing that he could do in the circumstances.

The water was perfectly smooth, so that there was really no danger that the runaway canoes would capsize, unless their owners should start up in a fright and not fully understand that their canoes were no longer on solid land. Neither was there much chance that they would be run down by steamboats, for the steamboat channel was near the south shore of the river, a long distance from the sand-spit. Joe remembered how fast the tide had risen the day before, and he calculated that the missing canoes must have been afloat about half an hour before the water reached the place where he was sleeping. They would naturally drift in the same direction in which the Dawn was drifting; and all that it would be necessary for Joe to do in order to overtake them would be to increase the speed at which his canoe was moving.

There was a scarcely perceptible breeze blowing from the south. Joe got up his main-mast and set his sail. Light as the breeze was, the canoe felt it, and began to move through the water. Joe steered by the stars, and kept the Dawn as nearly as possible on the course which he supposed the other canoes had taken. He had no lantern with him, and could see but a little distance ahead in the dark, but he shouted every few moments, partly in order to attract the attention of the missing canoeists, and partly in order to warn any other boat that might be in the neighborhood not to run him down.

After sailing in this way for at least an hour, and hearing no sound whatever but his own voice and the creaking of the canoe’s spars, Joe was startled at perceiving a black object just ahead of him. He avoided it with a vigorous movement of his paddle, and as he drifted close to it with the wind shaken out of his sail he saw to his great delight that it was a canoe.

It was the Sunshine, with her canoe-tent rigged over her, and her commander sound asleep. Taking hold of her gunwale, Joe drew the two canoes together and put his hand gently on Harry’s forehead. Harry instantly awoke, and hearing Joe begging him as he valued his life to lie perfectly still, took the latter’s advice, and asked, with some alarm, what was the matter. When he learned that he was adrift on the river he sat up, took down his tent, and getting out his paddle joined in the search for Tom and Charley.