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The Adventure Club Afloat

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him ashore. Phil found himself under the frowning battlement of the huge cliff on a ledge of sand and shingle scarcely twenty feet wide. But there was less sweep for the rain here and the _Adventurer_ was plainly visible through the strange semi-darkness. Steve had made the shore end of the cable fast to a boulder that stood, half out of the shingle, at the base of the cliff. For a long minute the six boys huddled there in the storm and disconsolately gazed at the boat. It was Han who voiced the thought of most of them. "She won't stay together long, I guess," he said sorrowfully. "Those waves will batter her to pieces." "She'll stand a lot of battering," answered Steve hopefully. "It's hitting her on the beam and she hasn't swung much since I left her. The tide's still coming in and--" He stopped. Then: "I ought to have dropped the stern anchor over," he went on. "What an idiot! If she had that to hold her from swinging broadside--" "Would it hold her?" asked Joe dubiously. "It would help." Steve tightened his belt. "I'm going back," he said. They remonstrated, but to no purpose. Then Joe and Han wanted to go along, and were denied. "It's no trick," said Steve resolutely. "I can do it easily. You fellows stand by when I come ashore again. That's the only tough part of it. Someone might see if there's a way up from this beach. If the tide comes much higher it's going to be a bit damp here." It was Perry who undertook that task, while the others followed Steve to the breakers' edge and watched him return to the _Adventurer_. He made no attempt to swim, but pulled himself along by the line, hand-over-hand, his head for the most of the time under the water. But presently he emerged and they saw him clamber to the deck, crawl along it and disappear. He seemed a long time there, but he came into sight again eventually and began the return trip. Perry was back by then and they formed a line by clasping hands and Joe stood well above his waist, battered by the surf, and Steve was helped along from one to another and presently they were all back on the beach once more. "I got it over," gasped Steve, "but it was hard work. I think it will hold. If the storm will only go down pretty soon she may get through. I think some of her planks are sprung, though. There's a foot of water in the after cabin. I got some matches and this cup." He pulled a tin cup from a trousers pocket. "Can we get up the cliff a way?" "Yes," answered Perry. "There's a sort of a shelf about a hundred feet beyond there. I'll show you the way." [Illustration: "Those waves will batter her to pieces"] They followed. Real darkness was coming fast now and Perry found difficulty in retracing his steps. But in a few minutes, by dint of scrambling and pulling themselves upward, they reached the shelf. It was barely large enough to hold them all and was scarcely ten feet above the level of the beach below. Nor was it at all level, for it had been formed by the accumulation of falling debris from the cliff and sloped outward at a steep angle. Some dwarf firs and low bushes had gained rootage, however, and it was possible for them to huddle there without fear of rolling to the rocks beneath. Steve tried to find some dead branches to build a fire, and did succeed in getting a few, but his first attempt to set them alight proved the futility of the undertaking. There was nothing for it save to lie as close together as they could, for warmth, and await the morning. That was a miserable night. They all slept at times, and by changing places they all, for a while at least, found some degree of warmth. But they had been drenched through to start with and when, at last, the stormy world began to lighten their garments were still sodden and they shivered whenever they stirred. Ossie was ill toward morning, but there was nothing they could do for him except huddle closely about him. He complained of intense pains in his chest and Steve had horrible visions of pneumonia until Ossie, asked to locate the trouble more definitely, laid a trembling hand on a portion of his anatomy and muttered "Here" through chattering teeth. "That's not your chest, you idiot," said Steve, vastly relieved. "That's your stomach!" "Is it?" returned the sufferer miserably. "Well, it hurts just the same!" But after an hour he felt considerably better and went off to sleep. By that time it was early morning and they could see about them. The rain had almost ceased, but the wind still blew hard and the surf was still pounding. Once during the darkness the waves had, from the sound, entirely covered the little beach. Now, however, they had receded and, as the light grew, they saw that the _Adventurer_ lay, with regard to the tide, about as they had last glimpsed her. But she had swung her stern further around, in spite of the anchor Steve had dropped, and the waves were breaking almost squarely across her. She was a pathetic sight. Her side curtains were waving in ribands, the forward flag-pole held nothing but one tiny rag of blue bunting and the tender, torn from the chocks, was jammed between the stanchions ahead. "But she's still whole," said Steve from between blue lips. "And the storm's going down. If she isn't sprung too much, and we could only get her off of there--" "Getting her off," said Joe with a pessimism born of hunger and cold and the gloom of the early morning, "will be about as easy as moving a house with a toothpick. I dare say the sand's bedded around her two feet high." "I'm afraid so," Steve agreed. "Well, let's have something to eat. Will you have steak or chicken, Joe?" "Broiled ham and a baked potato, please, and a couple of eggs. Not more than two minutes for the eggs. And you might bring me a couple of hot biscuits--" "Oh, shut up," begged Steve miserably. "Well, you started it! Who's awake here?" "I am," muttered Perry. "Seems to me I haven't been anything but awake for ten years." "Well, want to order your breakfast now, or will you wait?" asked Joe cheerfully. "Guess I'll wait," answered Perry grimly. "Where are those crackers?" They got Ossie awake with difficulty and Steve doled out six crackers to each. The tin cup came in handy, for there was a pool of rain water in a ledge below them. "What I can't see," grumbled Ossie, "is why we didn't stay on board the

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