“I don’t think it; I know,” answered Larry, beginning to shift ballast in a way that would make backing off the mud bank easier.
“But how do you know?”
“Because there’s a high wind outside and it’s blowing on shore. Look at the white caps out there where the water is open to the sea. We’re in a sort of pocket here, and feel nothing more than a stiff breeze, but it’s blowing great guns outside, and when that happens on an incoming tide the water rises a good deal higher than usual. We’ll float before the tide is at the full.”
“In my judgment we’re afloat now,” said Dick, who had been scrutinizing the water just around them. “We’re resting on the marsh grass, that’s all.”
“So we are,” said Cal, after scanning things a bit. “Let’s get to the oars!”
“Better wait for five or ten minutes,” objected Dick. “We might foul the rudder in backing off. Then we’d be in worse trouble than we were before.”
“That’s so, Dick,” answered Cal, restraining his impatience and falling at once into his peculiarly deliberate utterance. “That is certainly so, and I have been pleased to observe, Dick, that many things you say are so.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Cal, and for what it implies to the contrary.”
“Pray don’t mention it. Take a look over the bow instead and see how she lies now.”
In spite of their banter, that last ten minutes of waiting seemed tediously long, especially to Tom, who wanted to feel the boat gliding through the water again before forgiving himself for having run her aground. At last the bow caught the force of the incoming flood, and without help from anybody the dory lifted herself out of the grass and drifted clear of the mud bank.