on they would be lost. It was a
terrifying spectacle, and Charley's heart stood still.

They were close upon the reef. Skipper Zeb's face was tense. He was
working like a giant, and Toby, too, was putting all the strength he
possessed upon the sculling oar. With a scant margin to spare, they were
at last shooting past the outer rocks, when the oar snapped with a
report that was heard above the boom of the breakers.

An instant later came a crash, Violet screamed in terror, and Charley
felt the bottom of the boat rise beneath his feet.

VI

THE CAMP AT THE DUCK'S HEAD

When Skipper Zeb's oar broke, the boat, now at the mercy of the wind,
was driven upon a submerged rock at the tip end of the reef extending
some twenty yards out from the cliff known as the Duck's Head. Here it
stuck for what seemed to Charley a long time, reeling in the surf until
he was quite certain it would roll over and they would all be drowned.
Mrs. Twig, clinging with Violet to the mainmast, gave a shrill cry of
despair, and Violet screamed in terror. Then a mighty sea lifted them
like a chip from the rock, and swept the boat onward and beyond the
reef.

Rolling and wallowing in the angry sea, which threatened every moment to
swallow it up, the boat still floated to the astonishment of all, and
Skipper Zeb and Toby, with feverish zeal shipping a fresh oar, began
sculling toward the sheltered and calm waters under the lee of the
Duck's Head.

The wind in their quarter helped them, and with a few mighty strokes of
the oar the boat was carried beyond the reach of the rollers, and a few
minutes later, submerged to her gunwale, grounded upon a narrow strip of
gravelly beach on the western side of the Duck's Head, and Skipper Zeb
carried Violet ashore, while the other half drowned and half frozen
voyageurs followed.

A quantity of driftwood lined the base of the cliff. With an ax, which
Skipper Zeb recovered from the boat, he quickly split some sticks,
whittled shavings with his jack-knife from the dry hearts of the split
sticks, lighted these with a match from a supply which he carried in a
small corked bottle, and which were thus protected from the water, and
in an incredibly short time a cheerful fire was blazing.

"Well, now!" Skipper Zeb exclaimed, genially, warming his hands before
the fire. "Here we are safe and sound and none of us lost, as I were
fearin' when we strikes the rock we might be! All of us saved by the
mercy of th