noon
As none of them ever saw the first sign of that ill-fated boat again , it was always taken for granted that when the wind shifted in the night , at the time Thad drew attention to the fact , the strain became so great that the anchor cable had to give way , allowing the still floating boat to be carried out into deep water before the end came . They found the anchor where it had been placed , with the rope broken part way out , and this told the story as well as words could have . And so camp was made close by the boat belonging to the fish poachers , which it must be their duty to guard , so that later on they could make use of the same in order to escape from the island . The waves did not go down as rapidly as the boys would have liked , and when high noon came they were still rolling along in a way that was dangerous to any small craft , especially on such a great inland sea as Superior is , with harbors few and far between . Thad admitted that the chances of their getting away that day did not look good to him . Giraffe was the only real cheerful fellow in the party , and as he superintended the cooking of the delicious white fish for lunch he was heard to express his opinion several times . `` Well , one thing good about it is that there 's enough fish on the ice down in that well to last us till Christmas ; and it 's to be hoped that somebody with a boat comes along before then , to take us off ; or we can get this chunky craft of the poachers to working some .