62 THE FUR COUNTRY, which not a drop of water can penetrate. This light, easily-managed kayak, floating, as it does, on the crests of the waves, can never be submerged; and if it be sometimes capsized, a blow of the paddle rights it again directly ; so that it is able to live and make way in seas in which any other boat would certainly be dashed to pieces. The three Esquimaux, guided by the Lieutenant's last despairing cry, arrived at the scene of the wreck just in time. Hobson and Mrs Barnett, already half drowned, felt themselves drawn up by power- ful hands; but in the darkness they were . unable to discover who- were their deliverers. One of the men took the Lieutenant and laid him across his own boat, another did the same for Mrs Barnett, and the three kayaks, skilfully managed with the paddles, six feet long, sped rapidly over the white foam. Half an hour afterwards, the shipwrecked travellers were lying on the sandy beach three miles above Fort Providence. The old sailor alone was missing !
