“Very far, George; nearly as far as that miserable stone-boater,” Steve answered maliciously.
This nettled George, and he asked testily in a grum voice, “What about the little books now, Steve? Don’t you think they were right enough?”
“Well, George, it seems like it, surely enough,” Steve acknowledged.
“Don’t say spiteful things when we are in such danger,” Charles here interposed. “And besides,” he added, “we are all in the same scrape, and no one is to blame for it. So, let us lay our wise heads together, and try to save ourselves.”
Chapter X.
The “Bowl” Comes to Grief.
The first shock had now passed away, and the foolhardy scullers were beginning to recover their spirits. Although each one was still almost quaking with dread, yet each one believed that they would be rescued; and each one—except, perhaps, Jim—had a theory of his own as to how it would be effected. They viewed the matter logically. To them, it did not seem possible that six clever boys, determined, true, and good, (the writer and the reader may not agree to this) could perish so near home. They searched their minds diligently, conscience helping them, and many little things that made them uneasy were remembered; still: they would be rescued, they knew it.
The punt was now a long way out on the lake; the point was passed; looking longingly towards home they could discern the vessels at anchor, the wharf, and several buildings in the village.
In the confusion of the moment, they had left off bailing out the ramshackle punt, in which there were, consequently, three or four inches of water. A dead fish and half a dozen emaciated fish-worms—abandoned, a few days before, by an amateur angler of ten years—were carried hither and thither over the bottom of the punt, adding to the ghastliness of the scene.
Jim was the first to discover the water washing over his boots. Here was a new source of distress. Forgetting the storm, which was still more or less in the distance, his attention was centred upon that water. To him, in his “good clothes,” it was more to be dreaded than the bellowing waves, or the approaching storm. Thus, gentle reader, we get an insight into the boy’s character.