CHAPTER II
THE HOME ON THE ROCKS
It seemed only a moment later that Larry was roused by a thumping on the planks over his head. Half awake, and shivering with cold, he rubbed his eyes and tried to think where he was. Everything about the cabin could be seen now, a ray of light streaming in through the round port. For a little time he could not recall how he happened to be lying on the cold floor and not in his bunk; but the presence of the two dogs, still lying beside him, helped to freshen his memory.
The thumping on the deck seemed to have a familiar sound; there was somebody walking about up there. Some one else must have been as lucky as he in escaping the storm. And presently he heard some one come clumping down the companionway stairs. The dogs, who had been listening intently with cocked ears to the approaching footsteps, sprang across the cabin wagging their tails and whining, and a moment later old Martin stood in the doorway. He greeted the dogs with a shout of surprise and welcome, followed by another even louder shout when his eyes found Larry. For once the reserved old hunter relaxed and showed the depths of his nature. He literally picked the astonished boy up in his arms and danced about the little room with delight.
“Oh, but I am sure glad to see you, boy,” he said, when he finally let Larry down on his feet. “I didn’t suppose for a minute that I should ever see you or any one else here again—not even the dogs. I thought that you and everybody else went over the side when the first big wave struck us.”
“Why, where are all the rest of them, and why is the boat so still?” Larry asked, eagerly.
The old man’s face grew grave at once at the questions.
“Come out on deck and you can see for yourself,” he said quietly, and led the way up the companionway.
With his head still ringing, and with aching limbs and sore spots all over his body from the effects of bumping about the night before, Larry crawled up the companionway. He could hear the waves roaring all about them, and yet the boat was as stationary as a house. What could it mean?
When he reached the deck the explanation was quickly apparent. The boat was wedged hard and fast in a crevice of rock, her deck several feet above the water, and just below the level of the rocky cliff of the shore. She had been picked up bodily by the tremendous comber and flung against the cliff, and luckily for them, had been jammed into a crevice that prevented her slipping back into the ocean and sinking. For her bottom and her port side were stove in, and she was completely wrecked.
For a few minutes the boy stood gazing in mute astonishment. Old Martin also stood silently looking about him. Then he offered an explanation.
“’Tisn’t anything short of a miracle, I should say,” he explained to Larry. “I have heard of some such things happening, but I never believed that they did really. You see the waves just washed everything overboard—captain, crew, masts, everything—except you and me, and the two dogs. It washed me just as it did you, but I went down the after hatchway by luck, and I hung on down there in the companionway until the thing struck. But all the time that the waves were washing over us we were being driven along toward this ledge of rock full tilt. And when we were flung against this rock we should by good rights, have been battered to kindling wood at one blow, and then have slipped back into the water and sunk.
“But right here is the curious part of it all. Just as she got to the foot of this cliff, an unusually big comber must have caught her, raised her up in its arms fifteen or twenty feet higher than the usual wave would have done, and just chucked her up on the side of this bluff out o’ harm’s way—at least for the time being. The sharp edge of the ledge happened to be such a shape that it held her in place like the barb of a fish-hook. And all that the smaller waves could do was to pound away at the lower side of her, without hurting her enough to make her fall to pieces.
“But of course they’ll get her after a while—almost any hour for that matter; for this storm is a long way from being blown out yet, I’m afraid. And so it’s up to us to just get as much food and other things unloaded and up away from this shore line as fast as we can. Most of the stores are forward, and that is where she is stove in the least.
“I suppose we’ve got to take off five minutes and cram a little cold food into ourselves, so that we can work faster and longer. For we surely have got to work for our lives to-day. If this boat should suddenly take it into her head to slide off into the ocean again, as she may do at any minute, we’re goners, even if we are left on shore, unless we get a winter’s supply unloaded and stored on the rocks. For we are a long way from civilization, I can tell you.”
With that Martin rushed Larry to the galley, dug out some bread, cold meat, and a can of condensed milk. And, grudging every minute’s delay, they stood among the wreckage of the once beautiful cabin, cramming down their cold breakfast as hastily as possible. In the excitement Larry forgot his bruises and sore spots.
As soon as they had finished Martin hurried the boy to the forward store-room door, bursting it open with a heavy piece of iron.
“Now pick up anything that you can handle,” he instructed, “run with it up on deck, and throw it on to the bank. I’ll take the heavier things. But work as hard and as fast as you can, for our lives depend upon it.”
For the next two hours they worked with furious energy rushing back and forth from the store-rooms, staggering up the tilted steps to the deck, and hurling the boxes across the few feet that separated the boat from the ledge. Every few minutes Martin would leap across the gap, and hastily toss the boxes that had been landed further up on the shore, to get them out of the way for others that were to follow.
The enormous strength and endurance of the old hunter were shown by the amount he accomplished in those two hours. Boxes and kegs, so heavy that Larry could hardly budge them, he seized and tossed ashore in tireless succession, only pausing once long enough to throw off his jacket and outer shirt. For the perspiration was running off his face in streams, despite the fact that the air was freezing cold.
Fortunately most of the parcels were relatively small, as they had been prepared for the prospective inland hunting excursion which was to have been made on sledges. Many of the important articles were in small cans, and Larry rushed these ashore by the armful. He was staggering, and gasping for breath at times, and once he stumbled and fell half way down a stairway from sheer exhaustion. But he had caught Martin’s spirit of eager haste, and although the fall had shaken him up considerably, he picked himself up and went on as fast as his weary limbs would carry him.
At last Martin paused, wiping his face with his coat sleeve. “Sit down and rest,” he said to the boy. “We’ve got a whole winter’s supply on shore there now, if food alone was all we needed. So we can take a little more time about the rest of the things; and while you rest I’ll rig up some tackle for getting what we can of the heavier things ashore. You’ve done pretty well, for a city boy,” he added.
Then he went below, and Larry heard the sounds of blows and cracking timber. Presently Martin appeared, dragging some heavy planks after him. With these he quickly laid a bridge from the deck to the shore. Then he hunted out some long ropes and pulleys, and, carrying them to a tree far up on the bank, he rigged a block and tackle between this anchorage and the yacht.
“Now we’re ready for the heavy things,” he said.
With this new contrivance nothing seemed too big to handle. Martin and Larry would roll and push the heavy cases into a companionway, or near a hatch, and then both would seize the rope, and hand over hand would work the heavy object up to the deck across the bridge, and finally far out on shore. In this way the greater part of everything movable had been transferred from the boat by the middle of the afternoon; but not until the last of the more precious articles had been disposed of did Martin think of food, although they had breakfasted at daylight.
In the excitement Larry, too, had forgotten his hunger; but now a gnawing sensation reminded him that he was famished. Martin was “as hungry as a wolf in winter” he admitted. But he did not stop to eat. Calling the dogs and filling his pockets with biscuit to munch as he walked, he started out along the rocky shore of the inlet, to see if by any chance some survivor had washed ashore. Meanwhile Larry built a big fire at the edge of the woods to act as a signal, and to keep himself warm.
In two hours the old man returned from his fruitless search. He had found some wreckage strewn among the rocks, but no sign of a living thing. “And now we must get these things under cover,” he said, indicating the pile of stores.
For this purpose he selected a knoll some little distance from the shore above where any waves could possibly reach. Over this he laid a floor of planks, and spread a huge canvas over the boards. Then they began the task of piling all the landed goods on top of this, laying them up neatly so as to occupy as little space as possible, and over this great mound of food-boxes, gun-cases, canned goods, and miscellaneous objects, they pulled a huge canvas deck covering.
By the time they had finished the daylight was beginning to wane. Taking the hint from the approaching darkness, Martin dug into the mass of packages and produced a small silk tent, which he set up under one of the scrub trees which was sheltered by a big rock well back from the shore.
“Take that axe,” he told Larry, pointing to a carefully forged hunting axe that had been landed with the other things, “and collect all the wood you can before dark.”
Larry, scarcely able to stand, looked wistfully at the yacht. “The cabin is dry in there,” he suggested, “why don’t we sleep in there to-night?”
Old Martin shook his head. “I don’t dare risk it,” he said. “I am tired, and I’d sleep too soundly. I don’t think I’d wake up, no matter what happened. And something may happen to-night. The storm is still brewing, and the waves are still so high that they pound the old hull all the time. A little more hammering and she may go to pieces. We couldn’t tell from the noise whether the storm was coming up or not, because there is so much pounding all the time anyway. And wouldn’t it be a fine thing for us to find ourselves dropped into the ocean after we have just finished getting ourselves and our things safely ashore? No, you get the wood and I’ll give you a sample of the out-door suppers that we are likely to have together every night for the next few months.”
Larry picked up the axe and dragged his weary feet off to the thicker line of trees a short distance away. There was really little use for the axe, as the woods were filled with fallen trunks and branches that could be gathered for the picking up. So he spared himself the exertion of chopping and began dragging branches and small logs to the tent.
He found that the old hunter, while he was collecting the wood, had unearthed a cooking outfit, and had pots, pans, and kettles strewn about ready for use. Best of all he had hunted out two fur sleeping bags, and had placed a pile of blankets in the little tent, which looked very inviting to the weary boy.
Martin saw his wistful look and chuckled. “Too tired to eat I suppose?” he inquired.
“Well, pretty near it,” Larry confessed. “I was never half so tired in my whole life.”
“All right,” said Martin; “you’ve worked like a real man to-day. So you just crawl into those blankets and have a little snooze while I and the doggies get the supper. I’ll call you when the things are ready.”
“Don’t you ever get tired, ever, Martin?” Larry asked as he flung himself down. But if Martin answered his question he did not hear it. He was asleep the moment he touched the blankets.