Judge, they'll never make it!"
"They've got as good a fighting chance as we have," insisted Enoch,
stoutly. "Quit worrying about them, Milton. You've got your hands
full keeping the rest of us from being too foolish."
But try as he would, Milton could do little in the way of directing his
depleted crew. His leg and his back pained him excruciatingly, and the
vertigo was with him constantly. Enoch after trying several times to
get coherent commands from the sufferer finally gave up. As soon as
the scanty breakfast of coffee and a tiny portion of boiled beans was
over, Enoch divided the rations into four portions and stowed away all
but that day's share, in the Ida. Then he discussed with Agnew and
Jonas the best method of placing Milton on the boat.
They finally built a rough but strong framework on the forward
compartment against which Milton could recline while seated on the
deck, the broken leg supported within the rower's space. They padded
this crude couch with blankets. This finished, they made a stretcher
of the blanket on which Milton lay, by nailing the sides to two small
cedar trunks which they routed out of the drift wood. When they had
lifted him carefully and had placed him in the Ida, stretcher and all,
he was far more comfortable, he said, than he had been on his rigid bed
of stone.
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