oby talked of the fishing
season just ended, and of the winter hunting and trapping, and of
journeys on snowshoes and with dogs and sledge, and related many
exciting adventures, until Charley quite forgot that he was marooned in
a strange land among strangers.

Before candles were lighted that evening, Charley had placed Skipper Zeb
and Toby in the category of the heroes of his favourite books of
adventure. Here he was in a wilderness as remote as any of which he had
ever read, and here he was with folk who were living the life and doing
the deeds and meeting the adventures of which he had often read with
breathless interest. When he went to sleep that night in a bunk with
Toby he would have been glad that the mail boat had not returned for
him, had it not been for the regret he felt for the grief he knew that
his mother and father would suffer when Mr. Wise would report to them
that he had been lost.

They ate breakfast by candle-light the following morning, and daybreak
was still two hours away when Charley embarked with Skipper Zeb and the
family for the voyage to Double Up Cove.

Skipper Zeb and Toby hoisted leg-o'-mutton sails on the foremast and
mainmast under the lee of the land though the sails did not fill to
Skipper Zeb's satisfaction, and he and Toby each shipped a big oar and
pulled for a little until they were in the open bay and beyond the
shelter of the hills. Then they stowed the oars, and Skipper Zeb took
the tiller.

A good breeze now bellied the sails, and almost immediately the morning
darkness swallowed up the outline of the cabins. No star, no light, no
land was to be seen, and Charley was only conscious of the swishing
waters that surrounded them. He wondered how Skipper Zeb could know the
direction with no landmarks to guide him. How vast and mysterious this
new world was! How far away and unreal the land from which he had come!
He tried to visualize home, and the city streets with crowded traffic
and jostling people; and crouching down in the boat a thought of the
luxury and comfort of his snug bed, in which he would now have been
cozily tucked were he there, came to him, and he drew the collar of his
ulster more closely around his ears, and thrust his hands into its deep
pockets.

For a long time no one spoke, and a sense of great loneliness was
stealing upon him, when Skipper Zeb, lighting his pipe, remarked:

"'Tis a good sailin' breeze, and come day 'twill be smarter, with more
sea,