"We might follow up the steamer, if it wasn't for poor Dick."
The boys talked the matter over for some time, and while doing this the sails of the Swallow were again hoisted, and they turned the yacht back to the vicinity where Dick had gone overboard.
And while Tom and Sam are looking for their elder brother, let us turn back and learn what really did become of Dick.
He was waiting for Tom to come on deck with the lanterns when, of a sudden, something black and threatening loomed up out of the darkness to the starboard of the Swallow.
The mass was the better half of a monstrous lumber raft, which was rapidly going to pieces in the storm.
The raft, or rather what was left of it, hit the Swallow a glancing blow, otherwise the sailing craft must have been stove in and sunk.
The shock caught Dick with one hand off the wheel, and, before he could catch hold again, the youth found himself flung heels into the air and over the Swallow's stern.
Down and down he went into the lake waters, until he thought he would never come up.
The turn of affairs bewildered him, and he did not come fully to his senses until his head struck one of the timbers of the raft.
He clutched the timber as a drowning man clutches the proverbial straw, and tried to draw himself to the surface of the lake, only to discover, to his horror, that there were timbers to both sides of him, cutting off his further progress upward.