Now, said Harvey, addressing his crew, after he had confided the news of his embarrassed circumstances, Ill help you out all I can, and youll get along all right, with fishing and clamming. But, see here, no more shines like we had before.
I know I was in for it, too. But no more hooking salmon out of the nets. And let other peoples lobster-pots alone, or I wont look out for you.
Oh, well be all right, Jack, cried the ragged campers, gleefully; while little Tim Reardon, standing on his head and hands in an ecstasy of delight, seemed to wave an acquiescence with his bare feet.
Thats your doing, said Harvey, thoughtfully, turning to Tom and Bob. Since you saved my life the crew really have behaved themselves.
Two days later, the bare feet of Tim Reardon bore him, breathless, to the door of the other tent, where Harvey and Henry Burns sat chatting with Tom and Bob.
Say, Jack, he gasped out, you just want to hurry up quick and get down into the Thoroughfare. Theyre going to raise the Surprise . I got a ride on behind a wagon coming up the island this morning, and two men were talking about it. One of them said he heard Squire Brackett say that that yacht down in the Thoroughfare was anybodys property now, as it had been abandoned, and he calculated it could be floated again, and hed bring it up some day and surprise you fellows. But he hasnt started to do it yet, and so its still yours, isnt it? If he can raise it, we can, cant we?
Harvey sprang to his feet.
Raise it! he exclaimed. Why, Ive thought all along of trying it some day. Captain Sam said last fall he thought it might be done. But I had this other boat to attend to, and then I was called home. Well go after it this very afternoon. What do you say, Henry?
Yes, and I think I have a scheme to help float her, replied Henry Burns.
Acting on Henry Burnss suggestion then, the boys proceeded to the store, where, in a spare room, Rob Dakin kept a stock of small empty casks which he sold to the fishermen now and then for use as buoys. They hired the whole supply, some twoscore, agreeing to pay for the use of them and bring them back uninjured. These they loaded hastily aboard the Viking , having sent word in the meantime to the Warren boys. They, joining in heartily, soon had sail on their own boat, the Spray , and went on ahead, down the coast of the island.
Completing the loading of the Viking , and taking aboard an extra supply of tackle, borrowed for the occasion, Henry Burns and Harvey got up sail and set out after the Spray , stopping off the cove below to pick up the others of Harveys crew. They overhauled the Spray some miles down the coast, later in the afternoon, and thence led the way toward the Thoroughfare. They had the wind almost abeam from the westward, and went along at a good clip in a smooth sea.
That evening at sundown they sailed into the Thoroughfare. This was a stretch of water affording a somewhat involved and difficult passage between the Eastern and Western Bays, the two bays being so designated according to a partial division of these waters by Grand Island. The island was some thirteen miles long, lying lengthwise with its head pointing about northeast and the foot southwest.
The waters of the Thoroughfare were winding, flowing amid a small chain of islands at the foot of Grand Island. The channel was a crooked one, the deeper water lying along this shore or that, and known only to local fishermen and to the boys who had cruised there.
Henry Burns, on the lookout forward, presently gave a shout of warning.
There she is, Jack, he cried, pointing ahead to where the mast of a yacht protruded above water some three-fourths of its length. Theres the ledge, too. Look out and not get aground.
Oh, I know this channel like a book, said Harvey, and demonstrated his assertion by bringing the Viking to, close up under the lee of the submerged yacht, in deep water.
The yacht Surprise , sunken where it had been in collision with the very yacht that had now come to its rescue, lay hung upon a shelving reef, with its bow nearer to the surface than its stern. The tide was at the last of its ebb, and it was clear that by another hour there would be only about two feet of water over the forward part of the boat and about five feet over the stern.
We are in luck, cried Harvey. She has worked up higher on the reef, somehow, since last year, either by the tides, or perhaps some ice formed here in the winter and forced her up. She was deep under water when I last saw her.
But its a wonder the mast did not go, he added. The bobstay went when we smashed into the Viking ; and the mast wasnt any too firm when we last saw it. It wouldnt have stood after we struck if we hadnt let the mainsail go on the run.
Evening was coming on, but the boys lost no time in going to work. Getting into the dory that they had hired
for the season as a tender, Henry Burns and Harvey stepped out carefully on to the reef, and made their way down its slippery sides to the bow of the Surprise . Then, with trousers rolled up and divested of jackets and shirts, they proceeded, as soon as the tide had fallen, to nail some strips of canvas over the hole smashed in the bow. They fastened it with battens, putting several layers on, one over another.