"Eh—that's it," Ole Bar said with a dry smile. "The rest of the crews runnin' about like chickens with their heads chopped off, and these here galoots along shore is yelping like a pack of coyotes after a buffalo bull. But he's keepin' cool. This kind generally gits something done. Howsomever, that ark's goin' over. I've been numerous in turkey-trottin' and bee-runnin' and bar-killin', but I hain't never before seen an ark in no such fix as this un is."
"Look Nance," Ann whispered. "He's rising up—look!"
A moment his body partially showed. Then he bent low again. The next moment there was a sudden spurt of water from the bottom of the boat. The water pumping its way out caught the attention of the crowd.
"He's emptying her out!" they cried. "How did he do it?"
The tall figure under the colorless, shapeless hat had now lifted himself, and, as if to straighten his muscles after a long cramped position, he stretched to a height that seemed to be that of a giant, threw out his chest, reached his long arms to a prodigious expanse and took a deep breath.
As he did so Ann felt someone touch her. It was "Ole Bar." "Some huggin' he could do with them arms in matin' season—hey, Molly," he said; and when Ann turned to look at Ole Bar he winked his good eye at her and waited for an answer.
A shout from the crowd made any answer to this remark unnecessary. For a moment the towering youth stood before them like a comical picture, slender, angular, barefooted, his faded yellow breeches scarce more than clearing his knees and showing a pair of spindle legs. His uncolored shirt was flung wide open and over one shoulder was stretched a suspender which held one breeches-leg higher than the other. As the water pumped itself out and the boat began to right, they knew that he had bored a hole.
The cheers continued, he lifted his shapeless hat and, with the grace of a gentleman, waved it a couple of times at the cheering crowd. Then he pushed back a mop of black hair, clapped his head-covering down on it and turned to help reload the cargo that had been moved into small boats.
To bore a hole in the bottom of a water-filled boat was no great physical task. But the crowd cheered uproariously as the boat righted herself. Men shouted, women waved their bonnets and kerchiefs, and Ann Rutledge shook her branches of wild plums.
Again the ungainly young giant waved his hat.