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But jest at that minute, before I could frame a reply, even if I could have found a frame queer-shaped enough to hold my curious curious feelin's Miss Plank knocked at the door and said she wuz ready to go we had made arrangements to go together that mornin' and Josiah tackled her about the whale; and sez she briskly "Oh, yes; the whaleback Christopher Columbus!
Six o'clock next morning found Graeme on the deck of the Ibex as she threaded her way swiftly among the bristling black rocks that guard the coast of Guernsey. Herm and Jethou lay sleeping in the eye of the sun. Beyond them lay a filmy blue whaleback of an island which he was told was Sark, and it was to Sark he was bound.
They rode on slowly along the great whaleback of grass, winding in and out amongst brambles and patches of yellow-flaming gorse. The day was still even at this height; and when, far away, a field of long grass under a stray wind bent from edge to edge with the swift motion of running water, it took them both by surprise. And they met no one. They seemed to ride in the morning of a new clean world.
As the pull toward Whaleback was downstream both crews made magnificent speed with apparently little effort. The real struggle lay in rounding the Island and making the return pull upstream.
But, as they drew nearer, the vague blue-gray bloom of the whaleback resolved itself into a mantle of velvet green, which ran down every rib and spine until it broke off sharp at varying heights and let the bare bones through; and all below the break was clean naked rock black, cream-yellow, gray, red, brown, with everywhere a tawny fringe of seaweed, since the tide was at its lowest.
Mindful of their experience with the mate of the whaleback, Condy and Blix were all attention in an instant.
With their goal now close at hand the boys were able to step out at a more lively pace, even Bumpus showing surprising gains. About ten o'clock they arrived at the settlement where they had seen some sort of dock, at which a couple of ore barges of the whaleback type were being loaded.
They rode a short distance up the river to the Whaleback, a small island shaped, as its name indicated, like a whale's back. It was quite flat, only slightly elevated above the surface of the water.
For cargo carrying there would seem to be much in the claims of their inventor, Alexander McDougall, for their superior capacity and stability, yet they have not been generally adopted. The largest whaleback now on the lakes is named after Mr. McDougall, is four hundred and thirty feet over all, fifty feet beam, and of eight thousand tons capacity.
She found she was no longer in the mood to finish her letter; she lingered on the pier after the floating caravan had disappeared from view behind the trees on Whaleback. She looked up in surprise at the sound of Mary Sylvester's voice coming from behind her on the dock. "I thought you had gone to the village with the others," she said. "I was almost sure I saw you in the boat with Pom-pom."
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