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.
“She’s somewhere at the bottom of the river. I tried to turn over in her in the night, thinking she was on the sand-spit, but she turned over with me, and sunk before I could make out what had happened.”
“And then you swum ashore?”