"Shall we tow it ashore for them, boys?" Asked Dick.
"What say?" Brad remarked.
"Better leave it alone, if you know what's good for you," Sid spoke up. "Once you touch it, and there's no telling what Buck will try to tell people. Perhaps he'd even say we ran into him, and did the damage. But I reckon some people ashore saw it all; for there's Judge Colon's auto, standing up yonder; and they've got their field-glass leveled this way. It's Flo Temple, too, who's doing the looking."
"Better leave it alone then, fellows," Brad went on to say, being convinced by the logic of Sid that it was dangerous business meddling with anything belonging to Buck Lemington, even in a spirit of sporting fairness. "It's so smashed anyway, that it'll never again be worth fixing up. Too bad, too, for it was a boat with a history."
"How d'you reckon it happened?" asked Colon; "for of course Clem Shocks never caught that crab, or some of the other fellows would have jumped on him? Didn't you all see how silly they looked when Buck was accusing Clem? They knew, as well as he did, that it wasn't so, but not a single fellow had the grit to declare the truth."
"Oh!" Brad went on to remark, "Buck may have heard us coming around the bend, and forgot for a few seconds to keep as bright a lookout for snags as he ought. So they ran on this one at full speed. Say, wasn't that a fierce crash, though?"
Once more rounding the bend that shut out all sight of the wreck, and the forlorn members of the outlaw crew, who would have a walk of five miles and more before they could get to town with their sad news, the regulars put in some time in diligent practice.
"You're rounding out in fine shape, fellows," Brad declared enthusiastically, as they finally started up-river, bound for home. "To-morrow we're promised the valuable assistance of Mr. Shays, who knows the ropes from beginning to end. He'll be apt to give us a heap of valuable information, and correct a lot of our blunders; for I know we can do better work than this, once we get on to the right swing."
It was in this happy frame of mind that they came in to the little float that had been made by using a number of empty water-tight oil barrels; and from which the boat was to be launched, as well as taken from the water.
Every one of them felt thankful it had not been their craft that had met with disaster on this sunny afternoon.