Marooned in Crater Lake by Alfred Powers
At a small recession in the universal wall, on a tiny shelf or beach, where the water way deep and where the fishing seemed even more promising than from the boat, Jim asked to be put ashore. He told the men in the rowboat that he would catch one of the launches as it came by and that they did not need to wait for him or bother to call for him later.
Glad of the chance for two hours more of fishing, he expected to catch the motor-boat in which the Smiths were touring the lake. But this boat failed, after a long interval, to appear. He remembered now that it had come this way when it started out. He saw it, far on the other side of the lake, going in the direction of the landing and the foot of the trail. He shouted, but they did not hear him. He waved his hands and his handkerchief, but they did not see him. The boat disappeared from sight!
He expected that another boat of some sort would be along, but as he scanned the surface of the lake he saw none. None put out from behind Wizard Island. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter of four. He remembered what the caretaker of the Lodge had said at four he would begin hauling out the boats for winter. Even now he was probably covering them with tarpaulin. No more oars would dip in the blue waters before the next summer. The deep silence would be unbroken by the chug-chug of a motor. Navigation had ceased upon the lake, which was being left to its long winter solitude.
He was stranded!
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