Alex scratched his head. It was plain to Clay that the boy was on the same line of thought as himself. He, too, wanted Gran to go ashore so that he might be followed.
How was it to be arranged so that the canoe could be brought back to the Rambler after each boy had landed? Then the boy laughed softly to himself, wondering that he had ever given the matter a second thought.
“I’ll tell you!” he cried. “I’ll tie a long rope to the canoe, and when Case gets ashore I’ll pull it back. Then, when Gran gets ashore, I’ll pull it back again, so there will be no chance for any one to steal it.”
“Great head, Alex!” grinned Case, dropping off into the canoe and tying a longer and stronger line to the prow, in order that it might be drawn back to take Gran to the shore. “You’ll be president of some small country town yet. Now, don’t pull on that line, young man,” he continued, as the rope slipped through Clay’s fingers. “Just let her play out easily, and I’ll have no trouble with the old scow!”
He paddled to the shore easily enough, landing on a little sandy spot where hundreds of years of wash of water from the hills had ground soft rock to bits. Back of him ran the forest of cedar, and back of that the western ridges of the Rocky mountains.
“Pull her back, now!” he cried, taking his fishing tackle out of the canoe, “and have Gran bring some matches. I forgot it.”
“Where are you going to get your fish?” mocked Alex. “There are no fishes along that shallow shore.”
“Never you mind about that!” answered Clay. “See that pool just below the rock? Well, there is a big one in there that I’m going to have for supper. When I get him caught, you can come and help get his feathers off, Alex.”
“All right,” Alex answered, pulling the rude canoe back, very glad of the suggestion that he go ashore with the boys, “I’ll be there watching you when you haul him out.”
Gran now entered the canoe and paddled ashore. The new canoe was not much of a craft. It was just a cedar log on the outside and a black trough on the inside. Still, the boys figured that it would save them many a wetting, for there were places shrewd smile on his face, and Alex knew just what that smile meant.