both men at the helm. Only
occasionally was there a lull during which one of them could rush below
and return with a can of soup. During one of these lulls Boston had
examined the boat, towing half out of water, and concluded that a short
painter was best with a water-logged boat, had reinforced it with a few
turns of his rope from forward. In the three days they had sighted no
craft except such as their own--helpless--hove-to or scudding.

Boston had judged rightly in regard to the wind. It had hauled slowly
to the southward, allowing him to make the course he wished--through
the Bahama and up the Florida Channel with the wind over the stern.
During the day he could guide himself by landmarks, but at night, with
a darkened binnacle, he could only steer blindly on with the wind at
his back. The storm centre, at first to the south of Cuba, had made a
wide circle, concentric with the curving course of the ship, and when
the latter had reached the upper end of the Florida channel, had
spurted ahead and whirled out to sea across her bows. It was then that
the undiminished gale, blowing nearly west, had caused Boston, in
despair, to throw the wheel down and bring the ship into the trough of
the sea--to drift. Then the two wet, exhausted, hollow-eyed men slept
the sleep that none but sailors and soldiers know; and when they
awakened, twelve hours later, stiff and sore, it was to look out on a
calm, starlit evening, with an eastern moon silvering the surface of
the long, northbound rollers, and showing in sharp relief a dark
horizon, on which there was no sign of land or sail.

They satisfied their hunger; then Boston, with a rusty iron pot from
the galley, to which he fastened the end of his rope, dipped up some of
the water from over the side. It was warm to the touch, and, aware
that they were in the Gulf Stream, they crawled under the musty bedding
in the cabin berths and slept through the night. In the morning there
was no promise of the easterly wind that Boston hoped would come to
blow them to port, and they secured their boat--reeving off
davit-tackles, and with the plug out, pulling it up, one end at a time,
while the water drained out through the hole in the bottom.

"Now, Boston," said the doctor, "here we are, as you say, on the outer
edge of the Gulf Stream, drifting out into the broad Atlantic at the
rate of four miles an hour. We've got to make the best of it until
something comes along; so you hunt