A roller carried the skiff on its crest, dropped it with a crash upon the rocks, and receded.

Bobby sprang out, seized the painter, and running forward secured it to a bowlder, that the next sea might not carry it away.
Then, watching his opportunity, little by little and 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..