n't mind it."

But Bobby was in, and swimming for the skiff. It was, fortunately, not
above fifty or sixty feet away, for the whole occurrence had taken place
within a very few minutes' time, and the boat had not yet had time to
drift beyond reach.

A few strokes carried Bobby to the submerged skiff. He secured the
painter, which was attached to the bow, and with some hard tugging
reached the iceberg, and climbed up with Jimmy's assistance.

"You'd better take off your things and wring 'em out, while I dress,"
Bobby suggested, as he drew his clothes on.

"I guess I had," Jimmy agreed.

"Now," said Bobby, when he and Jimmy were dressed, after Jimmy had wrung
as much of the water as possible from his clothes, "we're going to have
a hard time of it getting the water out of her. How'll we do it?"

"Can't we get her alongside and turn her over?" Jimmy suggested. "We can
pull her up empty."

With some mighty pulling and hauling, and many futile efforts, they at
length succeeded, and presently the skiff was in the water again and
floating as easily as though nothing had happened and it had never once
been under the waves. And then a new problem confronted them.

"The oars! The oars are gone!" exclaimed Jimmy in consternation.

And so they were. Nowhere could they discover the oars, though they
clambered up the iceberg again and scanned the surrounding sea.

"Well," said Bobby, "that's hard luck! I wonder if we can't make father
or some one hear. Let's get up on top and yell."

From the top of the iceberg they shouted and shouted, but Mrs. Abel was
in one tent, busied with her household affairs, and Skipper Ed and Abel
were in the other tent, making ready their fishing gear, and the breeze
blew from the land, and altogether no one heard the shouting.

"No use," said Bobby at last, descending to the skiff. "I'll tell you
what we'll do. We'll knock one of the seats out, split it, and make two
paddles. They'll be short, but they'll do us to get ashore. It isn't
far."

"It looks as though it's the only thing to do, unless we want to stay
here for three or four hours," agreed Jimmy, taking the ax and knocking
out the seat. "I'm shivering cold from my wetting."

"It's lucky I hung to the ax," said Bobby, as he watched Jimmy
fashioning the paddles.

"There," said Jimmy at length, "they're pretty short paddles, but we'll
have to make 'em do. Let's get off of this."

But the tide was running out, and a very strong tid