“And of course we’ll all be as cross as a sawbuck,” said Irv Strong; “tired people always are; what we’ve got to do is to look out and not quarrel.”
“Oh, well,” said Phil, “I will take care of that. I am as cross as two sawbucks already, but I haven’t quarrelled with anybody yet, and I don’t mean to. And I’ll keep the rest of you too busy to quarrel. We will postpone all that until we get to New Orleans—”
“If we ever do get to New Orleans,” said Ed.
“Ever get to New Orleans? Why, we have got to get to New Orleans. We have undertaken to do that job for the owners of this cargo, and we are going to do it, if we have to pump the Mississippi River three times through this boat in getting there. Our present task is to reduce the necessity for pumping as much as we can.”
Phil found by experiment that one boy at each pump was nearly as efficient as two, and as the work of pumping was exhausting, he decided to keep only two boys at it, one at each pump. Then, taking the other two with him, he went below and with buckets they began dipping water from the hold and pouring it overboard at the bow. In this way they added largely to the work of the pumps, and every fifteen minutes or so two of the boys handling buckets would go to the pumps, and the two tired fellows at the pumps would come below and work with buckets.
It was wearisome work, but there was at any rate the encouragement of success. By one o’clock in the afternoon the water in the hold was so far reduced that it was no longer possible to dip it up with buckets with any profit. So Phil stopped that part of the work, and decided to keep the boys on very short shifts at the pumps, leaving them to rest completely between their tours of duty. He let two of them work for ten minutes. Then another pair took their places for ten minutes. Then the fifth one of the party—for Phil did his “stint” like the rest—became one of the relief pair, thus giving one boy twenty minutes’ rest instead of ten. This extra rest came in its turn of course to each of the boys, so that each boy worked forty minutes—ten minutes at a time—and rested sixty minutes out of every one hundred minutes or every hour and two-thirds.
About five o’clock in the afternoon Phil made one of his frequent journeys of inspection in the hold. He came on deck with an encouraged look in his tired face.
“We’ve got the water pretty nearly all out now, boys. Our next job is to keep it out by stopping leaks. We’ll work one pump all the time. I think that will keep even with the leaks, or pretty nearly so. If we find the water gaining on us, we’ll set the other pump going for a while.”
“And what’s your plan for stopping leaks, Phil?” asked Irv.
“First of all we’ll find the leaks,” said Phil. “Then we’ll do whatever we can to stop them.”