Explore "Masters of the Wheat-Lands" by Harold Bindloss on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Tom Lewson had been an hour in camp before he began the story of his wanderings, and at first, lying propped up on one elbow, with the lamplight on his worn face, he spoke slowly and with faltering tongue.
"We broke an oar coming off the beach that night, and it kind of crippled us," he said. "Twice the boat nearly went back again in the surf, and I don't quite know how we pulled her off. Anyway, one of us was busy heaving out the water that broke into her. It was Jake, I think, and he seemed kind of silly. Once we saw a boat hove up on a sea, but we lost her in the spray, and a long while after we saw the schooner. Just then a comber that broke on board 'most hove us over, and when we had dodged the next two there wasn't a sign of the schooner. After that we knew that we were done, and we just tried to keep her head-to and ease her to the seas."