“Let’s paddle hard, and see if we can’t make it.  The tide’s been drifting us in, and the paddling we’ve done in the night has been helping.”

“It didn’t seem to, but it must have,” agreed Jimmy, working as hard as he could with his short paddle.  “The exercise kept me warm, and that’s about the only good I thought it was doing, but it did help, didn’t it?”

“It certainly did,” agreed Bobby.  “My, but I’m hungry!”

“So am I,” said Jimmy.  “Won’t the sun feel good when it rises?”

“I wonder which way we lie from home?”

“South, of course, for that’s the drift of the current.  All the bergs drift south.”

“Yes, but how far?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but we must be some bit south of the island.”

And so they calculated and chatted, while the glow grew in the eastern sky, and until the sun rose, at last, to comfort them and warm stiffened fingers and chilled bodies.  But with the sun a westerly breeze also set in to retard them, and their progress was tedious and slow.

The shore still lay a long way off, though a little nearer than when they first discovered it in the morning light, and Bobby had just remarked that they had gained a little, when Jimmy suddenly ceased paddling, and rising to his feet gazed eagerly to the southward.

“What is it?” asked Bobby.  “What do you see?”

“A sail!  A sail!” Jimmy almost shouted a moment later.  “I wasn’t sure at first, but now I’m certain!”

Bobby was on his feet in an instant, and the two, balancing themselves dexterously while the skiff rose and fell upon the swell, watched excitedly as the sail increased in size.

“It’s a schooner!” said Jimmy.

“And it’ll pick us up!” said Bobby.

“If it doesn’t pass too far to windward to see us,” suggested Jimmy.

“They’ll be sure to see us,” insisted the optimistic Bobby.  “They can’t pass between us and the land without seeing us.”

And so it came to pass.  Nearer and nearer the schooner drew, until at length her whole black hull was visible, and then Bobby and Jimmy took off their jackets and waved them and waved them, until presently men crowded at the rail of the schooner and waved in answer, and in due time, when the schooner came abreast of them, a boat was lowered, and pointed directly toward them.

“Now we’ll be all right,” said Bobby, with immense relief, as they watched the four long oars, pulled by four husky men, rise and fall and glint in the sunshine, while a fifth man sculled astern.  “They’ll either drop us in at Itigailit Island or lend us oars for the skiff!”

“Yes, and it’s great luck for us that they saw us,” remarked Jimmy.  “I don’t believe we ever could have made land with these short paddles.”

“The first thing I want is something to eat and drink,” declared Bobby.  “I’m getting hungrier every minute.”

But the boat was upon them already, and they were soon to have a plenty to eat, and the adventure after all had amounted to nothing but a little inconvenience.  It was all in a day’s work, and already they had forgotten the dismal night, or if they had not in fact forgotten it they had at least put it behind them as an experience of small importance.