Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1916-11-04

though a little heavy with water, In
no danger of sinking.
He clambered in, and, to his delight,
found that the Ours and water cask,
as well as the scraps of food, had
rolled beneath a thwart. He took the
oars and pulled.
And he laughed as he reflected that
1t made no difference in which direc-
ton he pulled. Death confronted him
every way upon the breast of the
South Atlantic with no land within
four hundred miles in any direction.
Jerry set his course in s0utherly
direction
All through the day he drove the
craft forward All day he searched
the horizon to find some trace or a
passing ship, but always in vain. He
WAS far out of the course OF ocean
travel. And night fell, and the scraps
of food were cone.
Dawn found him half delirious from
want of sleep and fatigue. The sea
was running heavier, and he had to
bail ceasplesSly. The third day he
pulled like an automaton. The heay-
ing waves, across which he had to set
his course 10 keep the boat from foun-
dering, the gray sky that never admit
ted sunlight. seemed like an eternity
In monotone engufing him. Often he
lost consciousness Of his Whereabouts,
and in fancy was back in Porto Del
gado with Leontine again. and the man
who had endured his priyations was
another
What awakened him from a lethargy
which would have been ended by
drowning was the sudden discovery
that his water supply was gone.
He had drunk without knowing that
he was drinking; mechanically his
hands and lips and throat had gone
through the acts necessary to retain
life within the body. But suddenly
he realized that he was crouching
in a choppy sea above the empty cask.
And with this realization the dreams
faded. Clear-headed, but weak, Jerry
looked death in the face as he thought
before the monsters final spring.
Then, with a cry of joy, he realized
that not five miles distant, to port,
and disappearing behind him, was Il
spit of land, hardly elevated above the
surface al that distance.
He had been passing it; in another
half hour he would have missed it.
With eager hands he pulled the boat
around, and, putting about, began to
pull with all his might toward the
ledge.
Suddenly, with crash, the boat
went hard IN fast upon a rock. A
needle fang pierced her. She began
to fill. Jerry spraHs out, chung to the
rock, felt bottom, and began to wade
through the icy water until he
emerged, high, but not dry, upon the
shelving sand.
A little cave in the base of the low
cliff gaped at his side. He crept into
it and never knew he fell asleep.
II
When he open ] his eyes the sun,
appearing for the first time in many
days, was high in the sky. The warm
sunshine flooded the island and a
beam, entering the cave, danced on
the jagged rock.
Jerry did not at first remember
what had happened. 1t took some min
utes before the recollection of that
nightmare in the boat had filtered
through the gates of his mind.
He was apparently upon a tiny un
charted island in the Atlantic, pound
ed necessarily by the great waves
that spent their fury on the shelving
sands. What he had thought line
of CLIFFS was merely groups Of rocks
divided by rillets of fresh water thai
bounded down from the ACTIVITY
above Upon the other side of the isle
the beating of the breakers could b1
heard plainly.
He assembled the low slope, and saw
the Atlantic lashing at the strip o
shore beyond. The isle was barely ;
quarter of Il mile in breadth, and per
haps a mile long. 1t was the SUNNI
of a submerged mountain, bare, tree
less, thinly covered with sparse
grasses, and absolutely uninhabited.
Stumbling down toward his cave
Jerry had his wits almost shaken b.
A