Part 2 (1/2)
”Hey, what you goin' to do, have a snack?” yelled Steve, who at that moment chanced to be a little way ahead of the others.
”Bandy-legs is sinking, and we've got to see what ails his boat!”
answered Max, making a speaking tube or a megaphone of his hands.
No doubt Steve, impatient to reach their destination, and make camp before dark, would be saying things not at all complimentary to the sufferer, as he retraced his course, in order to join them.
Meanwhile, when the canoes reached a pebbly stretch of sh.o.r.e, they were beached; and then Max set to work to ascertain what could have happened to the cedar boat to make it start sinking in such a mysterious way.
First the bundles were taken out, and they all observed that it was fortunate they had decided at the last minute to let Bandy-legs have one of the tents instead of the foodstuff he had been given in the beginning.
”Give me a hand here, fellows,” remarked Max, ”and we'll turn her over to let the water get out faster. I can see right now where the trouble lies, and it's right down in the bottom. There's a leak as sure as anything!”
”Then its good-by to my bally little canoe right in the start, I reckon,” complained the owner, sadly. ”I'm a Jonah, all right. All sorts of things keep happening to _me_. What does it look like, Max?” as the boat was finally turned completely over, so that the bottom was fully exposed.
Max uttered an exclamation that told of astonishment.
”Well, that is queer!” they heard him mutter, as he thrust a finger through the hole in the garboard streak of the boat.
”What strikes you as so funny, Max?” asked Steve, who had by now joined them.
”Look for yourself,” replied the other, moving back.
Four heads were instantly bent over, as the boys took his advice.
”Must have been a round snag, all right,” commented Steve; ”because that's as pretty a circular hole as I ever saw.”
”Tell you I never struck no snag!” declared the indignant Bandy-legs; ”guess I'd 'a' felt it, wouldn't I, Max?”
”Listen, fellows,” said the one appealed to, in a tone that caused the others to stop their wrangling, and pay attention; ”as Bandy-legs says, he didn't run foul of any snag on the river since we left home. That hole was made by an auger, or a bit held in a brace. Some mean fellow had the nerve to lay this trap for our chum, in order to give us all the trouble he could.”
”Shack Beggs!” shouted Steve, always quick to make up his mind.
”That was why he kept grinning like he did, when he watched us go off,”
observed Owen, in a disgusted way. ”When do you suppose he could have found a chance to do such a dirty trick, Max?”
”Well, we don't know for a certainty whether it was Shack or one of his crowd,” replied the other, shaking his head; ”but whoever did it must have found some way to get into the boathouse after we left last night.
You remember, boys, we've got a ratchet brace there, and several bits.
One of them would just about fit this hole. But he must have been mighty careful to take away every little splinter, so as not to make us suspect there'd been any funny carryings-on.”
”How d'ye suppose he fixed it, so as to keep the water out till just now?” asked the bewildered owner of the canoe.
For answer Max made a crawl underneath, and almost immediately came out again holding something in his hand, which he showed them. It was apparently a plug of wood, and must have come from the hole that had caused the sudden flooding of the cedar canoe.
”There, you can see what a neat little game he played!” Max exclaimed.
After he bored that round hole he made this plug and drove it in from above. Underneath he made sure that it was evened off so it wouldn't be seen unless any one examined the bottom of the canoe close. Then he had it fixed so when Bandy-legs got to moving about, as he always does, you know, any time he was liable to loosen the plug and the pressure of the water'd do the rest.
”Oh! what a wicked shame!” cried the owner of the wrecked canoe.