ay into the fog. When they had gained what they thought was a safe
distance from the shore they ceased rowing, and congratulated themselves
that they were all right at last. To be sure, Harry had scraped his
ankle badly; Tom had forgotten the coffee, and left it on the shore; and
Joe had put the sugar in the bottom of the leaky boat, where it was
rapidly dissolving into syrup; but they were once more afloat, and
expected to reach their comfortable camp within the next twenty minutes.

There was not a particle of air stirring, and not a star was visible, so
they had absolutely nothing to steer by. They could not even hear the
sound of the water which ordinarily lapped the shore. Still, they were
not discouraged. Harry thought he knew which way the camp lay, and so he
and Tom rowed in what they imagined was the right direction.

They rowed for two hours without finding the island, and without
reaching the shore. They could not understand it. The lake seemed to
have grown in the night, and to have reached the size of Lake Ontario.
They knew that by daylight they could row across it at its widest part
in less than an hour, but now it seemed impossible to find any shore.
Joe had just suggested that they had made a mistake in coming back from
Schroon, and had walked all the way to Lake Champlain, on which they
were now rowing, when the bow of the boat struck the shore.

It was some consolation to know that the lake actually had a shore; but
they could not tell what part of the shore they had reached. They pushed
off again, and resumed their hopeless search for the camp. A new trouble
now harassed them. From seeming to have no shore at all, the lake now
seemed to have shrunk to a mere mud puddle. No matter in what direction
they rowed, they would strike the shore within ten minutes, and always
at a different place. Joe said that he had never dreamed that so much
shore and so little lake could be put together.

Toward morning Harry and Tom became too tired to row, and they lay down
in the bottom of the wet boat, and tried to keep warm by lying close to
each other. Joe took the oars, and tried to row without hitting the
shore; but he had hardly dipped his oars when the bow grated on the
pebbles. He promptly gave up the attempt, and making the boat fast to a
tree, joined Tom and Harry, and shared their misery.

They were much too cold and wretched to sleep, but they managed to keep
from growing positively stiff with cold. The