er the little
sailor and he was walled in and cut off from land and water, alone in a
cloudy sea with neither shore nor sky nor surface. The boy turned
swiftly towards his home, and when he saw that it, too, was gone, he
uttered a cry of terror. "Daddy, oh, Daddy!" he wailed. Collie came
close and licked his face and whined, then looked about him and growled
disapprovingly at the weird thing that surrounded them. The boy put
his arms tight around the dog's neck and hugged him. "Oh, Collie!" he
cried, "we're lost, and I don't know where home is and where Daddy is."
It was not the loss of gold that troubled him now. He stared about him
in the greyness, striving to make out some object. The fog was so
thick that he could see only the length of the canoe, but a big, darker
mass of shadow in a world of shadows, told him where Wanda Island lay,
and grasping his paddle, he started in what he believed to be the
direction of home. He paddled until he was out of breath, rested a
moment, then went at it again with all his might. The pain in his arm
returned, but he dared not stop. And as he worked madly in his efforts
to reach home, the gentle wind was slowly but surely carrying him out
to the open lake.

Every few minutes the thought of his father would overcome him and he
would drop his paddle and, sinking down beside Collie, would sob aloud.
Then he would rise again bravely and go at his task, but each time with
feebler efforts. The pain in his arm, which kept returning at
intervals, was sometimes so bad he had to stop and nurse it. He was
wet to the skin now, and Collie's hair was dripping. Whenever he
rested, he spent the interval calling loudly for his father, while
Collie helped him by barking, but though he listened till his ears were
strained, only the soft lap, lap, of the waves against the canoe
answered. As night came on the thick pall grew heavier and blacker,
and at last he could not see even the length of the canoe.

The sore arm became almost helpless at last, and he could paddle only a
few strokes at long intervals. He slipped down beside Collie, hugging
him close, and sobbed out on his sympathetic head his sorrow for the
rash venture. He even confessed that he wished he had left his friend
at home. "Aunt Kirsty and Daddy will be that lonesome, Collie," he
wailed, "without either of us. But I couldn't do without you at all,
Collie!" he added. And Collie licked his face again, and whined his
ap