CHARLEY and Harry took in their sails, keeping the canoes head to sea with an occasional stroke of the paddle. When all was made snug, and the moment for turning the canoes had arrived, they realized that they were about to attempt the most hazardous feat of the whole cruise.
“Can we do it?” asked Harry, doubtfully.
“We’ve got to do it,” replied Charley.
“Why can’t we unship our rudders and back water till we get to the reeds?”
“It might be possible, but the chances are that we would be swamped. The seas would overtake us, and we couldn’t keep out of the way of them. No, we’ve got to turn around and sail back in the regular way.”
“You know best, of course,” said Harry; “but what’s the use of taking in our sails before we turn around? We’ll have trouble in setting them again with the wind astern.”
“We can turn the canoes quicker without sails than we could with the sails set, and every second that we can gain is worth something. Besides, if we are capsized it will be an advantage to have the sails furled. But we’re wasting time. Let your canoe get right astern of mine, so that mine will keep a little of the sea off of you; then watch for two or three big seas and turn your canoe when they have passed.”
Harry followed his friend’s instructions, and succeeded in turning his canoe without accident. Then Charley, getting into the lee of the Sunshine, did his best to imitate Harry’s successful feat. He managed to turn the canoe, but while in the act a heavy sea rolled into the cockpit and filled the Midnight absolutely full. The beef-bladders, however, kept the canoe afloat, but she lay like a log on the water, and every successive wave swept over her.
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.”
“I hope it’s all right,” exclaimed Joe; “but it seems to me that you’ll have to get a derrick to hoist me out. But I’m not complaining. I can hang on to my canoe all day, only I don’t want to be drowned and buried both at the same time.”
Charley, meanwhile, was busily making his canoe fast to Tom’s canoe with his painter. When this was done he paddled away from the shore with all his might, while Tom tried to lift himself out of the quicksand by throwing the weight of his body on the canoe. Slowly Tom and his canoe yielded to the vigorous strokes of Charley’s paddle and were towed out into deep water. By the same means Joe and Harry were rescued, and then the entire fleet—Charley paddling, and the others swimming and pushing their canoes—floated a short distance down stream, and finally landed where the sand was firm and hard.
“What should we have done if you’d got into the quicksand, as we did?” said Harry to Charley, as they were dressing.
“By this time we should all have disappeared,” replied Charley.
“I shall never go ashore again while we’re on this river without making sure that I’m not walking into a quicksand,” continued Harry. “It was awful to find myself sinking deeper and deeper, and to know that I couldn’t help myself.”
“Very likely there isn’t another quicksand the whole length of the St. Lawrence,” said Charley. “However, it’s well enough to be careful where we land. I’ve noticed that where a little stream joins a big one the bottom is likely to be soft; but after all a regular dangerous quicksand isn’t often met. I never saw but one before.”
“Tell us about it,” suggested Joe.
“No; we’ve talked enough about quicksands, and the subject isn’t a cheerful one. Do you see that pile of boards? Let’s make a board shanty, and go to sleep in it after we’ve had some lunch. It will be too hot to paddle before the end of the afternoon.”
A shanty was easily made by leaning a dozen planks against the top of the pile of boards, and after a comfortable lunch the boys took a long nap. When they awoke they were disgusted to find that their canoes were high and dry two rods from the edge of the water. They had reached a part of the river where the tide was felt, and without knowing it they had gone ashore at high tide. They had to carry the canoes, with all their contents, down to the water, and as the receding tide had left a muddy and slippery surface to walk over the task was not a pleasant one. They congratulated themselves that they had not gone ashore at low tide, in which case the rising of the water during the night would have carried away the canoes.
Sailing down the river with a gentle breeze, and with the help of the ebbing tide, the canoeists came to the mouth of a small river which entered the St. Lawrence from the north. They knew by means of the map that the small river was the Jacques Cartier. It was a swift, shallow, and noisy stream, flowing between high, precipitous banks, and spanned by a lofty and picturesque bridge. Taking in their sails, the boys entered the Jacques Cartier, picking their way carefully among the rocks, and making headway very slowly against the rapid current. They stopped under the bridge, just above which there was an impassable rapid, and went ashore for lunch.
Near by there was a saw-mill, and from one of the workmen who came to look at the canoes the boys heard wonderful reports of the fish to be caught in the stream. It was full of salmon—so the man said—and about nine miles from its mouth there was a pool where the trout actually clamored to be caught. The enthusiasm of the canoeists was kindled; and they resolved to make a camp on the bank of the stream, and to spend a few days in fishing.
After having thus excited his young hearers the workman cruelly told them that the right to fish for salmon was owned by a man living in Montreal, and that any one catching a salmon without permission would be heavily fined. The trout, however, belonged to nobody, and the boys, though greatly disappointed about the salmon, would not give up their plan of trout-fishing. They hired two carts from a farmer living a short distance from the river, and, placing their canoes on the carts, walked beside them over a wretchedly rough road until they reached a place deep in the woods, where a little stream, icy cold, joined the Jacques Cartier. Just before entering the latter the little stream formed a quiet pool, in which the trout could be seen jumping. The point of land between the trout-stream and the river was covered with a carpet of soft grass, and on this the canoes were placed and made ready to be slept in.
The workman at the mouth of the Jacques Cartier had not exaggerated the number of trout in the pool. It was alive with fish. The boys were charmed with the beauty of their camping-ground and the luxury of their table. It was rather tiresome to walk two miles every day to the nearest farm-house for milk, but with the milk rice griddle cakes were made, and upon these and fresh-killed trout the canoeists feasted for three delightful days.
“THEY FOUND A BEAR FEASTING UPON THE REMAINS OF THEIR BREAKFAST.”
They had one real adventure while on the Jacques Cartier. One day, when they returned to their camp from an exploration of the upper part of the trout-stream, they found a bear feasting upon the remains of their breakfast and their bottle of maple-sirup, which he had upset and broken. The animal was full-grown, and looked like a very ugly customer, but no sooner did he see the boys than he started on a rapid run for the woods. By the time the boys had found their pistols and were ready to follow him the bear had disappeared, and though they hunted for him all the rest of the day they could not find him. Had the bear taken it into his head to hunt the boys he would probably have been much more successful, for their pistol-bullets would have had little effect upon him, except to sharpen his appetite for tender and wholesome boys’-meat.