with much tugging
and effort, he drew the skiff to a safe position beyond the waves, and
as he did so he discovered that the water which it held ran freely out
of it, and that one of its planks had been smashed, and in the bottom of
the skiff was a great hole.

And there he was, wet to the skin, stranded upon a wind-swept, treeless
island, with a useless skiff and with never a tool--not even an ax--with
which to make repairs. And there he was, too, without shelter, and the
first terrible blizzard of a Labrador winter rising, in its fury and
awful cold, about him. And whether or not there was any wood about that
could be gathered with bare hands he did not know. But more important
than wood was cover from the storm, for without protection from the
blizzard Bobby was well aware he could never survive the night.

CHAPTER XVI

A SNUG REFUGE

The weather had suddenly become intensely cold, and Bobby's wet
clothing was already stiff with ice. The northeast wind, laden with
Arctic frost, swept the island with withering blasts, and cut to the
bone.

The wind was rising, too, and there was no doubt that with darkness it
would attain the velocity of a gale, and the storm the proportions of a
sub-Arctic blizzard. Snow was already falling heavily, and presently it
would be driving and swirling in dense, suffocating clouds. Winter had
fallen like a thunderbolt from heaven.

But Bobby never permitted himself to worry needlessly. He was not one of
those who with the least difficulty plunge into unnecessary
discouragement and lose their capacity for action. It was not in his
nature to waste his time and opportunities and energies worrying about
what might happen, but what in the end rarely did happen. He conserved
his mental and physical powers, and turned his mind and muscles into
vigorous and practical action. And like every fortunate possessor of
this valuable faculty, Bobby more often than not raised success out of
failure.

And so it came to pass that when Bobby found himself cast away upon the
naked rocks of a small and treeless sub-Arctic island, with no shelter
from the awful cold of a driving blizzard, and with no other tools than
his hands, he did not give up and say, "This is the end," and then sit
down to wait for the pitiless cold to end his sufferings. What he did
say was:

"Well, here I am in another mess, and I've got to find some way out of
it."

He examined the skiff carefully and the examination