However, before the sweep of water turned the prow fairly around, Alex was over the gunwale, clinging with all his might to the broken cable. Clay and Jule were at his side in a moment and, half swimming, half stumbling, quite up to their chins in the cold water, they held the boat until the current swept it farther over on the sandy beach that bordered the cove.
“There you are!” shouted Alex, wading, dripping, from the river. “The next time I take a trip on the Rambler, I’m going to wear a diving suit. I’m dead tired of getting wet.”
“You’re lucky not to be at the bottom of the river!” Clay announced.
The rowboat, which lay upon the roof of the cabin, was now brought down, a cable was taken out of the store room, and the Rambler firmly secured to a great rock which towered above the slope of the cove.
The boys stood for a moment looking over the surface of the river, still bathed in moonlight, then Alex rushed into the cabin and brought out a field glass.
“What I want to know just now, is who cut that cable,” he said.
“That’s easy,” Jule replied. “It was the innocent little boy who had read all about the Rambler in the Quebec newspaper.”
Alex swept the river with the glass for a time and then passed it to Clay.
“There he goes,” he said, “away up the river, heading for St. Luce! That’s the boy who disconnected the electricity and cut the cable. That’s the boy who we will even up with when we catch him, too.”
“And you’re the boy who’ll wash dishes for a week for talking slang!” Jule taunted.