“No go,” said Bruce. “Suppose we give her the whole chain.”
“Yes,” said Bart. “It may hold her if it is all out.”
“At any rate,” said Arthur, “it will prevent her drifting somewhat.”
“Down she goes, then,” said Bruce, as the chain ran out. Soon it was out at its fullest extent, and they again watched to see what effect would be produced. By this time they had gone very much farther from the shore, and Tom and Phil were just discernible.
“It checks her a little,” said Bart, “yet very little. As to holding her, that is out of the question.”
“And yet there can’t be much of a current here.”
“I don’t know as to that. It is difficult to tell anything about it. There are currents in all sorts of places around the bay.”
“Perhaps, if we let it drag for a while,” said Bruce, “it may catch somewhere and hold. I’ve heard, of such things.”
“There’s very little chance, I’m afraid,” said Bart, in a despondent tone. “If we only had half a fluke I wouldn’t care; but as it is, we have no fluke at all, and that’s why we can’t do anything.”
Waiting thus, and wondering what they could do next, the three boys looked sadly toward the receding shore. The quilts which they had thrown around them had been fastened at the waist with rope-yarns, and these, in the exercise of letting go the anchor, had fallen from their shoulders, leaving them exposed from their waists upward. They looked ruefully at one another as they thought of this, burst out laughing, and then drew the quilts, toga fashion, over their shoulders again.