When the boat in which Tom was darted down the stream, he at first felt paralyzed by utter terror; but at length rousing himself, he looked around. As the boat drifted on, his first impulse was to stop it; and in order to do this it was necessary to find an oar. The oar which Captain Corbet had used to scull the boat to the schooner had been thrown on board of the latter, so that the contents of the boat might be passed up the more conveniently. Tom knew this, but he thought that there might be another oar on board. A brief examination sufficed to show him that there was nothing of the kind. A few loose articles lay at the bottom; over these was the sail which Captain Corbet had bought in the ship-yard, and on this was the box of pilot-bread. That was all. There was not a sign of an oar, or a board, or anything of the kind. No sooner had he found out this than he tried to tear off one of the seats of the boat, in the hope of using this as a paddle. But the seats were too firmly fixed to be loosened by his hands, and, after a few frantic but ineffectual efforts, he gave up the attempt. But he could not so quickly give up his efforts to save himself. There was the box of biscuit yet. Taking his knife from his pocket, he succeeded in detaching the cover of the box, and then, using this as a paddle, he sought with frantic efforts to force the boat nearer to the shore. But the tide was running very swiftly, and the cover was only a small bit of board, so that his efforts seemed to have but little result. He did indeed succeed in turning the boat's head around; but this act, which was not accomplished without the severest labor, did not seem to bring her nearer to the shore to any perceptible extent. What he sought to do was to achieve some definite motion to the boat, which might drag her out of the grasp of the swift current; but that was the very thing which he could not do, for so strong was that grasp, and so swift was that current, that even an oar would have scarcely accomplished what he wished. The bit of board, small, and thin, and frail, and wielded with great difficulty and at a fearful disadvantage, was almost useless. But, though he saw that he was accomplishing little or nothing, he could not bring himself to give up this work. It seemed his only hope; and so he labored on, sometimes working with both hands at the board, sometimes plying his frail paddle with one hand, and using the other hand at a vain endeavor to paddle in the water. In his desperation he kept on, and thought that if he gained ever so little, still, by keeping hard at work, the little that he gained might finally tell upon the direction of the boat--at any rate, so long as it might be in the river. He knew that the river ran for some miles yet, and that some time still remained before he would reach the bay.