Besides, it's my own fault that I'm in this fix.

If I hadn't carried away that cable this thing never could have happened.
What a fool I was! But who would have supposed the water could rise so quickly ?" The thought of his little dugout caused the boy to wonder if it were still attached to the raft where he had made it fast the evening before.

Again he ventured outside to look for the canoe, but the darkness was so dense and the violence of the storm so bewildering that, after a narrow escape from stepping overboard, he realized that without a light of some kind the undertaking was too dangerous.

"There must be a lantern somewhere," he thought.

"Yes, I remember seeing one brought aboard." Finally he discovered it hanging near the stove, and, to his joy, it was full of oil.