“You have nothing on me there,” declared Mr. Lavine. “I have never been able to master more than the first few motions in the art of swimming.”
But the flames were springing higher and they had nothing with which to throw water on the fire. The man had not even a bailing tin in his moribund old craft. Mr. Lavine had been using a swab and was covered with grease and dirty water.
This became a small thing, however–and that within a very few minutes. The boat was doomed and both knew it.
Mr. Lavine tried to tear up more of the grating under foot so as to make something that would float and upon which they might bear themselves up in the water. But the boards were too thin.
Then he tried to unship the rudder (the singed boatman was no use at all in this emergency) and so make use of that as a float. But the bolts were rusted and the boat had begun to swing around so that the fire blew right into the stern.
They both had to leap overboard.
It was a serious situation indeed. By Mr. Lavine’s advice they paddled toward the bow, one on either side of the boat, for the flames were rushing aft.
The bow was a mere shell, however. The flames had already almost consumed it, and soon the fire fairly ate through the bows at the water level. The water rushed in and so sank the boat by the head.
Not that the boat went straight down. The stern rose in the water and the two men, in their desperate strait, gazed at the flames above their heads.
Had it been night the fire would have been like a great torch in the middle of the lake–and it would have brought help from all directions. As it was, the black smoke first thrown off, and then the steam, attracted more than the girls of Green Knoll Camp to the scene.