They slept soundly in the shanty that night, with the wind howling about their ears and the rain dashing against the single window and beating like mad upon the roof. Nor did the storm abate the following day, nor the next night. Not till the third morning did the sunlight welcome them as they awoke, but then it poured through every chink and crack in the shanty, as though to make amends for the length of its absence. When the woods had dried sufficiently so they could venture abroad, they set out to hunt for a young spruce that would do for a boom for the _Spray_. After cutting several and finding they had been deceived in their length, they finally secured one which would do. Then they brought up the stub of the boom from the yacht and got the exact measure of the old one from the sail, which they disentangled from the snarl of rigging, and spread out. “I am afraid Captain Sam would laugh at this spar-making effort of mine,” said George Warren, as he trimmed away at the slender trunk of spruce, from which he had peeled the bark; “but it will do to take us on our cruise again. And what’s the use of going on a cruise if you don’t have adventures?” When he had fashioned the stick as well as his one tool—a hatchet from the locker of the _Spray_—would admit of, he unscrewed the jaws from the old boom, fastened them upon the new, and the boom was done. Then they set about mending several tears in the mainsail, with a needle and twine, also from the yacht’s locker, and by noon everything was in readiness for rigging the sail once more. This proved the most difficult task of all, for they found that it is one thing to know the running rigging of a sailboat, and another thing to reeve it when it has been displaced. It was not until the middle of the afternoon that they had the job completed, and then, as the wind was dying out, they decided it was useless to attempt to set sail till the following morning. In the meantime, Henry Burns, finding that he was of no service in the work of rigging the yacht, had volunteered to get a mess of fish for supper. Accordingly he set out, equipped with a short alder pole and line and a basket, to try for some cunners and small cod off the ledges on the seaward side of the island. He succeeded in getting a fairly good catch, and then continued along the shore in search of mussels, as the tide was several hours ebbed. His search brought him at length to the northernmost extremity of the island, where he sat down on the beach to rest. Then, as he started to resume his walk, he noticed that the receding tide had left bare a narrow sand-bar, that connected the island on which the cabins stood and the adjacent island, so that he could now pass from one to the other almost dry-shod.