“Well, if this don’t beat the world!” exclaimed Mr. Swan, as soon as he had taken in the situation. “Somehow or other those villains always manage to come out at the top of the heap, don’t they? Did you have a fight with them? I heard sticks a clashing and somebody yelling. I hope none of you ain’t hurt.”
“Don’t be uneasy on that score,” replied Roy. “Joe and I had a scrimmage with them, but you didn’t hear either one of us yell. It was Matt and Jake. Sam was good grit. He never said a word, although I punched him with the blade of my oar the best I knew how. Arthur was standing on one of the lockers when the scow struck us, and he and the lamp made a plunge of ten feet in the clear before they touched the water.”
“Do you mean to say that they ran into you a purpose?” exclaimed the guide.
“Of course they did. We cut them off from the shore, as you directed, and that old scow of theirs came at us like a battering-ram. Matt heard Joe tell us to-night to sink the canoe, and that was what put it into his head to run into us.”
Meanwhile Arthur Hastings had worked his way around to the bow of the skiff and secured the painter, one end of which he made fast to a ring in the stern of the canoe. The chase was over, of course. They could not continue the pursuit in the dark, for the squatter could easily elude them in a hundred different ways, and neither would it be prudent to follow him in the canoe. The little craft was intended to carry only one person, with a very limited allowance of camp equipage, and the added weight of one of the boys would have sunk her so deep in the water that no speed could be got out of her. The only thing they could do was to go back to camp and finish their sleep.
“But what shall we do to-morrow?” was the question that Joe and his comrades asked themselves and one another. “Our boat is badly stove, and if we can’t patch her up, how are we going to get back to Mount Airy?”
Mr. Swan towed the disabled skiff to the shore, her crew swimming alongside or trying to assist him by pushing behind, and the fire was started up again to aid them in making an examination of the injuries she had received. They were fully as severe as the boys expected to find them, and it was a wonder to them that she was so long in filling.
“There’s plenty of guides down to the lake that can fix her up for you in good shape,” said Mr. Swan.
“Of course,” replied Roy. “But the lake is twenty-five miles from here, and there’s no way to get her down there.”
“Mebbe there is,” answered the guide. “For a shilling I’ll agree that she shall go down there, and carry you into the bargain. But we can’t do nothing with her to-night. You boys get on some dry clothes and go to bed again.”