“Do you think we can raise her?” asked Case.
“We can if she has any bottom left,” declared Clay. “If they only cut a few holes in her and sunk her that way, we can get her out.”
“Aw, what’s the good of taking up time with the old wreck!” demanded Alex, who had listened to the conversation. “It isn’t our boat, anyway.”
“But the Cartier is a splendid launch, and worth a lot of money,” Clay suggested, “and we might pay the expenses of the trip by getting her out for the Fontenelles. It won’t do any harm to try.”
“All right!” Alex cried. “Just remember I’m the champion long distance diver, when you get ready to go down and look her over.”
After breakfast the Rambler was taken still farther upstream, as far up, in fact, as the depth of the water would permit.
“There!” Captain Joe observed, pointing to a bend just above the prow of the boat. “This is the strange thing that I called your attention to. The river widens here in the most mysterious manner.”
“It may be just back water,” Clay ventured.
“No sir!” answered the captain. “There is no back water here. See how steadily the current runs? And there’s no creek running in, either.”
“Then there must be a subterranean stream running—”