82 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



high wind. He knew the bay to be shallow but did not 

 know how shallow it was. He had never seen breakers 

 on it, but now when we came to the vicinity of Kay 

 Point we found ahead of us a long line of breakers 

 stretching far to the northwest from the tip of the Point. 

 We saw this so late that there was nothing for it but 

 to run through the breakers. We thought the boat would 

 not touch bottom for Roxy assured me the depth of 

 water would not be less than ten feet. But there was 

 danger of the boat filling and sinking. 



Roxy now lived up to all the things I had heard about 

 him as a wonderful sailor. He had to sit low at the tiller 

 to do the steering but his wife stood on a pile of bedding 

 at the mast and chose the road, for she had more sea- 

 craft than I. The line of breakers was perhaps not more 

 than fifty yards wide and we were through them in a 

 moment. But it was an exciting moment. 



Now the time had almost come to make a ninety 

 degree turn to the right, and Roxy warned all of us to 

 stand by as the sail came over. But the sail did not 

 come over; for just as we rounded the cape the wind 

 changed. Evidently it was blowing parallel to the hills, 

 and when we turned the corner of the land we had also 

 turned a corner of the wind. That meant that we had 

 before us a straight and steep coastline thirty-five miles 

 to Shingle Point and never a place to land, for we had 

 based our supposition of shelter behind Kay Point on 

 the theory that the wind would be blowing from the 

 southwest when we got there, and now it was blowing 

 from the northwest. 



There was only one other hope. The wrecked schooner, 

 Bonanza, was lying up on the beach at King Point and 

 behind her there ought to be shelter as behind a pier. 



