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For several hours the Selache stretched out close-hauled into what they supposed to be open water, and they certainly saw no ice. Then they hove her to, and when the wind fell light brought her round and crept back slowly upon the opposite tack. Wyllard had gone to sleep in the meanwhile, and daylight was just breaking when he next went out on deck.
In any case, Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern. He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet.
Dampier went out on deck, while Wyllard, flinging off his dripping clothing, crawled into his bunk and went quietly to sleep. Before they hove to the Selache, daylight broke on a frothing sea, across which scudded wisps of smoke-adrift and thin showers of snow. With two little wet rags of canvas set the schooner lay almost head on to the big combers.
Then the Selache slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it, while, when she once more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild West coast, she was painted a dingy grey, and her sawn-off boom just topped her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, and a big mainsail needs men to handle it.
The next morning the sea was very high, and the faint light was further dimmed by snow, but it seemed safe to Dampier, and the vessel held on while the big combers came up astern and forged by high above her rail. The Selache was traveling fast to the eastward.
A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, while the Selache drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked sea.
There were marks in the sand which showed where a boat had been drawn up not very long before. The Selache evidently had been there, and had sailed away again. Wyllard sat down limply upon the shingle, for all the strength seemed suddenly to melt out of him, and it was several minutes before he looked up.
The Selache hove herself out of it forward as she swung up with streaming bows. It seemed to Wyllard that he must overrun the boat before he noticed her, but at last he saw Dampier swing himself on to the rail. The skipper stood there clutching at a shroud, and presently swinging an arm, turned toward Wyllard. "Eight ahead!" he shouted. "Let her come up a few points before you run over them."
Crippled as she was, the Selache would lie a point or two south of east when they had set an old cut down fore-staysail on what was left of her mainmast, and the hearts of her crew grew a little lighter as she crawled on across the Pacific. They had no wish to be blown back to the frozen North.
The Selache slid down the inlet again, and lay for several days in a forest-shrouded arm near the mouth of it. When she once more dropped her anchor off a Siwash rancherie far up on the wild west coast, she was painted a dingy gray, and her sawn-off boom just topped her stern. One does not want a great main-boom in the northern seas, and a big mainsail needs men to handle it.
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