INTRODUCTION
WHEN the biggest lake there is chooses to go on one of her very bestrampages, even the bravest of mariners make as speedily as possible forsafe harbors. At midnight, therefore, following a certain blustery dayin early summer, it was not strange that the huge, storm-tossed lakeappeared, for as far as eye could reach, absolutely deserted.
Somewhere, however, on that fearfully tumultuous sea, one direlythreatened craft was still abroad, and, what is a greater marvel, stillafloat. At best, the ancient yawl was but a poor excuse for a ship;now, at her worst, she was little more than a raft. Driven before thewind, tossed here and there by the buffeting waves, she carried asolitary passenger and only a little one at that.
Indeed, he wasn't at all the kind of sailor that one would _expect_ tofind sailing dangerous seas all alone at midnight, for the solitarymariner, adrift in all that wilderness of tumbling water, was atwelve-year-old boy.
There was no sail to the little boat--that had been torn away in thefurious gale--but a short, stumpy mast remained. To that the boy,happily unconscious of his plight, was firmly but rather clumsily boundby means of many folds of stout fish-net wrapped tightly about hisslender body. Also about his waist hung a battered life-preserver.
The lad had been fastened there by other hands than his own, formost of the knots were out of his reach. The little chap's head hungforward; his eyes were closed; he no longer heard the roar of the seaor felt the cold or suffered from hunger; but in spite of this mercifuloblivion, he still had a life to lose--and was in very grave danger oflosing it.
It isn't fair, of course, to leave a really attractive little lad in aplight like this; with darkness and an angry sea all about him; with,seemingly no possible help at hand, since the nearest coast was stillmany miles distant and supposedly uninhabited.
Yet, in this truly terrible predicament, this poor boy--strange littlehero of a girls' story--must remain until you've learned just how acertain "Whale" (you must admit that it isn't usual to find whales nearfresh water) contributed to his rescue.
To discover exactly how it all happened we must go way back to the verybeginning; and the beginning of it all was Bettie.
THE CASTAWAYS OF PETE'S PATCH