ADRIFT ON THE OCEAN.

The dory was a better sea boat than they had imagined. In a situation where a craft of another build would not have lived an instant, she succeeded in riding the first onslaught of the tide-bore. In another instant, Tom and Jack had her around with stern to the stampeding seas and were being borne swiftly along.

Alongside, a thousand angry, choppy waves reached up like hungry hands, as though determined to come on board and drag the craft to her doom. The manner in which the boat handled surprised and delighted Tom, and Jack was no less pleased. True their position was still a highly precarious one, but at least the watery grave they had dreaded had not yet engulfed them.

Sandy sat up in the bottom of the boat and looked about with wondering eyes.

"We're all right the noo?" he asked.

"I won't say that," rejoined Tom, "but at least we have got over the first great danger."

"What are we doing?"

"Riding along on the top of the tide-rip, for that's what it must be, and now I remember hearing of such a thing on this coast."

"How long will it keep on, I wonder?" questioned Sandy.

"I don't know. I suppose till the tide is full or till we get out of the passage that we must be in."

The others looked at him silently.

"But this is a dandy boat," went on Tom cheerily, plying his steering oar, for there was no need to row in that rushing current, "she rides like a chip."

Even a powerful steamer, if caught where the boys were, could have done little more than they were doing to meet the emergency. Her only course would have been to run before the furious tide. The boys began to be resigned to their fortune. The fog seemed to lift occasionally now and then, shutting down, however, as densely as ever between the intervals of lighter weather.

Wild screams of sea birds that flew by like spirits of mist assailed their ears. Now and then the herculean splash of a great dolphin feeding in the tide came close alongside and startled them smartly.

True it was that they were still afloat and now appeared likely to remain so, but each moment was carrying them rapidly further from their friends and closer and closer to dangers whose nature they could only surmise.

As Sandy thought of all this, his fears began to return. His lip quivered.

"I wish we'd never left the ship," he said at last.

"That's a fine way to talk," spoke Tom sternly. "When you're in a scrape the only thing to do is to try to get out of it as best you can."

"That's the stuff," assented Jack, "but if we only had something to eat, I'd feel a little better."

"Maybe there's something under that stern seat," suggested Tom, indicating the place he meant. Sandy raised the seat, which tilted back disclosing a locker, and gave a cry of delight. Two tins of beef, some packages of crackers and a big pie reposed there. Evidently Bill Rainier, the pilot, believed in carrying lunch with him when he went out in a fog.

"Jiminy crickets," roared Jack, as one after another Sandy held up the eatables, "just think, those have been there all this time! Let's eat and forget our troubles."

"Better go slow," admonished Tom, no less pleased, however, than the others at this unexpected good fortune.

Jack cut open the meat tins with his knife and they fell to eating as they discussed their situation. They made a good meal, not forgetting liberal portions of the pie. But the lack of water troubled them. Crackers and salt beef with dried raisin pie do not make a lunch calculated to allay thirst. But they were in no mood to complain. The food alone heartened them wonderfully and put them in a mood to face their dilemma less despairingly.

Little by little the waves began to grow smaller. The current grew less swift.

"We must have reached some place where the channel widens and the tide can spread out," observed Tom, noticing this. "Now if the fog would only lift, maybe we could get ashore some place."

"Let's try the oars again," suggested Jack.

"That's a fine idea if we only knew where to row to," rejoined Tom. "I'm afraid we'll have to drift till the fog lifts. I've no more idea which way our course lies than the man in the moon."

"Same here. I'm all twisted up like a ball of yarn," admitted Jack.

Although they had been afloat for such a long time, it was still daylight. At that time of year in those regions it is light almost all day long. This was a good thing, for if darkness had overtaken them they would doubtless have become even more alarmed than they were. For some time they drifted on, when all at once a sudden shift of the wind came. The fog was whipped into white ropy wreaths that drifted off like smoke. And there before them, not half a mile off, was a fair sized bay edged by rocky cliffs, but green and tree-grown close by the water. The blue bay, smooth and calm compared to the open sea, led back into the heart of a noble mountain panorama. Beyond the coast hills were snow-covered peaks and inaccessible valleys. Between the hills that formed the bay, the vegetation was plainly fresh and verdant.

"Hurray!" shouted Jack, carried away by enthusiasm at the sight of land once more.

Tom checked him gently.

"Remember we have no idea where we are yet," he said. "This country is sparsely settled and we may have stumbled on some desert part of it."

Jack's face fell, and Sandy, who had been about to share his rejoicing, remained silent.

"Can't you figure out what land this is?" asked Jack.

"I've not the remotest idea. I'm like you, all twisted up as to locality."

"That bore gave us such a shaking up, I couldn't tell east from west," observed Sandy.

"At any rate, that land yonder is no illusion," declared Tom cheerily. "Come on, boys, get busy with the oars and we'll be ashore in no time."

"I hope it is inhabited," said Jack.

"Same here; but that remains to be seen. At any rate, judging by the green trees and grass there's water there from the mountains beyond. We can stop some place ashore and make camp."