"Maybe a ship will pick us up!" Jack yelled.
"They have a hard enough job trying to stay afloat without helping anybody else," Ben replied. "It"s every man for himself out here, and the devil take the hindmost."
Rowing outward toward Redgauntlet had been hard; rowing back while towing a raft full of people was nearly impossible. Every pull at the oar took tremendous effort, and with the dinghy erratically rising and falling, sometimes Jack"s strokes ended in empty air and at other times he was deep in the sea. The tow line hauled them back as often as they pulled the raft forward, but they persisted.
Redgauntlet"Pull!" Ben gave orders that Jack and the man they had rescued obeyed. "Pull! Stop!"
They rested on their oars, panting, sweating, glazed of eye, with their muscles aching and a
