"Gee! it's a raft, isn't it?" said Joe. "Whose is it—yours? Have you any poles to guide it with?"
They had forgotten poles, but Fred thought oars would do.
"I saw a couple of old ones in the barn," Ward chimed in. "I'll go and get them."
He darted off before Fred and Artie could say yes or no, and this time stayed longer—but he might have been hunting for the oars.
"Let me try to sail it?" said Joe, when Ward came back, trailing the clumsy oars in the sand behind him.
"It won't carry five," Artie declared, including Albert in his calculations.
"No, it may not carry one," said Fred. "Artie has the first chance to be drowned, because it is his raft. We'll stand by to rescue him, and then if he survives some more of us can ship with him."
Artie giggled and took off his shoes and stockings. As he remarked, there was no use in spoiling them.
Fred and Ward took off their shoes and stockings, too, for they knew they would have to help shove the raft into the water.