“Now my idea is to take short pieces of rope and to tie as large a rock as we can handle to each of them. Then we can hang them over the barrel until she begins to sink.”

“But won’t they slip off?” Jack asked.

“Not if we put a nail through the rope.”

It was nearly six o’clock the morning after the accident. The boys had already had breakfast and had gotten two of the barrels out from under the floating pier.

“How are you going to hitch the barrels to the boat after you get them down there?” Jack asked.

“A very important question, son. I thought we could find some kind of a hook which we could fasten to the barrel and then we got them down all we’d have to do would be to slip one under the top of the bow and the other the same way at the stern.”

“No good,” Jack shook his head.

“Why not?”
19

“Son, I’m surprised at your ignorance. You’d better go dig up Archi. and ask him about his principle.

“But I don’t see why—”

“Of course you don’t and that’s the reason I’m so surprised.”

“Well, when you get ready perhaps you will enlighten me.”

“Certainly. But first let me ask you a question.”

“Shoot.”

“When you stick your finger in the water and pull it out does it leave a hole?”

“Well that’s a question that would admit of considerable argument from a theoretical point of view but I think we can safely agree that the hole, if there was a hole, would not remain for an indefinite period of time.”

“Whew, that never touched me. Did you mean that it wouldn’t leave a hole?”

“I guess that was the main idea.”

“All right then. Now that that is settled perhaps you will tell me how you intend to bail the water out of the Sprite while she is still under water. As you have planned it she will still be a foot or more below the surface after the barrels have brought her up.”
20

“Well, I am dumb for a fact. Honestly, Jack, I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a case of being up and down at the same time. Well, that means that we will either have to fasten them lower down or else tow the whole shooting match into shore after we get her up. What do you say?”

“Well, of course if we could get the barrels under the boat that would solve the problem but I don’t see how we could do it. No, I guess the best bet is to tow her in.”

“I think so myself. Now suppose you be looking for some stones while I run down to the boat house and see what I can do about a couple of hooks.”

“And don’t forget to bring up the rope.”

Bob was back in the course of half an hour having found two hooks which went with a hoisting tackle and found that Jack had collected a sufficiently large number of rocks most of them being about all he wanted to lift.

“Now we’ll get them aboard and be off,” he said.

Thanks to the buoy they had no trouble in finding the place where the Sprite lay and after an hour’s hard work they had the pleasure of seeing the barrel disappear beneath the surface, directly over the bow of the boat.

“Now we’ll get the other one,” Bob said as he started to row back up the lake.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Jack declared. “If only that barrel landed on the bow.”
21

“It won’t be hard to lift it if it didn’t,” Bob assured him. “You see we put on just barely enough rocks to sink it so it’ll be light in the water.”

By nine o’clock the other barrel was down at the stern.

“Let’s hook the one on the bow first,” Bob proposed as he stood ready for the dive.

“Right. Got your knife?”

“Sure thing.”

“Then come on.”

They struck the water together and swam swiftly for the bottom. To their great satisfaction they found that the first barrel had settled in exactly the right place on the bow and they had no trouble in slipping the hook into a ring. Then, with their knives they cut the ropes which held the rocks.

“Did you notice whether she lifted any?” Bob asked as he was climbing into the boat. “I didn’t have time to see.”

“I did. She came up a foot or two.”

“Good. Then she’ll come up when we get the other one hooked on.”

“I guess so. But we’re going to have a harder time with that other one.”

“How come?”

“I noticed going down that it was two or three feet behind the stern, that means that we’ll have to lift it on.”

“Well, I guess we can do it.”
22

They waited until they were thoroughly rested and then again dove for the bottom. As Jack had said the second barrel was resting behind the stern. But, as Bob said, it was not hard to lift in the water and they had little trouble in getting it onto the stern before having to come up for air.

“I told you we could do it,” Bob panted as he stretched out on the bottom of the boat.

“There’s no ring at the stern to hook into,” Jack reminded him.

“That’s so.”

“Suppose we can hook into the tiller post?”

“Don’t see why not?”

But it was harder than they thought as they had considerable trouble in making the hook reach and they were obliged to come to the surface without cutting the ropes.

“One more whack at it and she’ll come up,” Bob declared after he had regained his breath.

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps nothing. She’s got to.”

“Well, here’s hoping.”

“I’ll go down and cut the ropes. There’s only two of them,” Bob said as soon as he was rested.

“Now watch her come up,” he said a moment later as his head bobbed above the water.
23

But to their great disappointment nothing appeared. They waited several minutes, expecting to see the barrels emerge but no barrels came.

“Guess Archi. has fallen down on this job,” Jack said after some five minutes had clasped.

“Looks like it.”

“What’s next then?”

“Have to get another barrel, I guess.”

“I’m going down and have a look first,” and Jack disappeared over the side of the boat.

Bob waited until he was beginning to be anxious before Jack reappeared.

“Rudder’s caught between two rocks,” he said as soon as he could speak. “That’s what’s holding her. She must have gone down kinder sideways and then righted a bit. Anyhow the rudder is pinched so that I couldn’t budge it.”

“Are the rocks big?”

“Too big to move, I’m afraid, but we’ll try it together.”

But their united strength was not enough to accomplish the task. The rudder of the Sprite had settled neatly into a crevice between two rocks and was there held fast and, although they pulled with all their might, they were unable to budge it.

“We might do it if we had a crowbar,” Jack suggested as they lay panting.

“I believe we could and there’s one at the boat house.”
24

“Then we’d better go get it.”

They rested a few minutes and then rowed back to the cottage and got the bar.

Back again Bob tied a strong cord to the bar and fastened the other end to the row boat.

“Afraid that bar’d be too heavy to bring up,” he explained.

Then he jumped in holding the bar in his hands and trusting to its weight to carry him to the bottom. Jack followed and soon they had the end in the crevice and were tugging with all their strength.

To their great satisfaction they felt the big rock give a trifle and after another mighty pull on the bar the rudder slipped out and the boat began to rise. They had hardly gotten into the row boat when first one barrel and then the other came above the surface.

“Hurrah for Archi.,” Jack shouted.

Bob grinned as he panted for breath.

“Science is a wonderful thing,” Jack declared.

“You said it, son.”

The deck of the Sprite was some two feet beneath the surface as she floated supported by the two barrels.

“We’d sure have some job bailing her out as she is,” Jack laughed.
25

“And it’s going to be some work to tow her in shore. It’s nearly half a mile and she sure’ll pull hard.”

He was correct in his estimate of the work still ahead of them and it took them all of two hours to tow the Sprite to the sandy beach directly opposite, and about a mile below the cottage.

“I’m hungry,” Jack declared as the boat finally scraped on the bottom.

“Ditto.”

“Then let’s leave her here and go up to the cottage and get dinner.”

“My sentiment exactly.”

They preferred walking in place of rowing, Bob declaring that his arms felt as though they were nearly pulled out of their sockets. They made a hasty meal as they were both anxious to get back to the boat and in a little over an hour they were at work again. It was not difficult to pull the boat up on the gently sloping beach until it was far enough out of water to be bailed out.

This was slow work, but it was finally accomplished and once more the Sprite floated as proudly as ever on the surface. A careful examination disclosed that Jack had been right. Except for a little paint rubbed off the side the hull was uninjured.

“Do you suppose the water has injured the motor?” Jack asked.
26

“Don’t see why it should. But we’ll have to overhaul it and get it thoroughly dried, before we can be sure.”

“Well, let’s get those barrels aboard and tow her up to the cottage.”

It took them the rest of the afternoon to clean and dry the motor but they were well rewarded for their work when they found that it ran as smoothly as ever.

“Now a little paint and she’ll be as good as new,” Bob declared after they had taken a short run down the lake to make sure that all was right. “But we’ll let that go till to-morrow. Suppose you see if you can get a mess of perch while I mix a batch of biscuit.”

“How’d you guess it?” Jack laughed as he ran up to the cottage for his rod.

Catching fish was, as Jack often said, the best thing he did, and by the time Bob had his biscuits in the oven he had six big perch sizzling in the frying pan.

“These are pretty near as good as trout,” he declared a little later as he reached for his third.

“To say nothing of the biscuits,” Bob grinned.

“They’re always the best ever. Melt in your mouth,” Jack assured him. “I think this is my sixth.”

“Well, we won’t starve so long as you can catch fish and I can bake biscuits.”
27

“I’ll say we won’t.”

“I do hope that nothing will happen to disturb the rest of the vacation,” Bob said as they were washing the dishes.

“Had enough excitement, eh?”

“Enough for one summer.”

“It sure was pretty strenuous catching those liquor smugglers.”

“You said it. I saw by the paper the other day that they got five years at hard labor.”

“And that’s none too much according to my way of thinking.”

Just then the telephone rang.

“I’ll answer it,” Bob said.

“This you, Bob?”

It was his father’s voice which came over the wire.

“Yes.”

“Well a telegram has just come for you from Rex Dale. It says, ‘Meet me Skowhegan, 10.30 to-morrow.’”

“That’s funny. I thought he was going to sail for Europe in a few days. That’s what he said in his last letter.”

“I know, but something must have changed his plans. Everything all right up there?”

“It is now but we had a bit of a mess yesterday.” And he told his father about the accident.
28

“Good boy,” Mr. Golden almost shouted as Bob told him how Jack had saved his life. “I often wonder what will happen to you boys next.”

“It’s all right so long as we land on our feet,” Bob laughed.

“If only you always do,” Mr. Golden sighed. “Really, Bob, I sometimes think I’d better put you two in a glass case and set a watch over you. Then I’d know that you were safe.”

“Who was it?” Jack asked as his brother joined him down on the wharf where he had gone to replace the barrels.

“It was Father. A telegram just came from Rex saying to meet him to-morrow at 10.30.”

“Wonder what’s up. I thought he was going abroad.”

“So did I but it seems that we were wrong.”

“Well, I’ll be mighty glad to see him again.”

“You bet.”

Rex Dale, the son of a prominent business man of Philadelphia, was a few years older than Bob. The boys had met him while at The Fortress, a military college which they both attended, under circumstances already related in a previous volume, and a strong friendship existed between them.

“Must be something mighty important,” Jack declared as they returned to the cottage, “to make him give up that trip.”
29

“Mebby he’s only postponed it.”

“Mebby, but I reckon we won’t know till to-morrow.”