“Now rouse her in!” Ned cried as he took a double turn and prepared to hold the slack. “Walk her around, an’ we’ll soon know whether that blessed anchor has got to be picked up again.”
It was not necessary to make any change.
When the hawser was hauled as taut as was possible with such a heavy rope, the anchor held firm, and Ned said in a tone of satisfaction:
“There’s the biggest half of our work done! Now we must make this cable fast somewhere else until the other anchor is in place. By working lively we can finish it before dark.”
This seemed like rather a rash statement, since the sun was already very near the horizon, but so rapidly did the little crew work that the task was accomplished before night had fully come, and the boys had the satisfaction of seeing the two ropes stretched far out into the water like strands of iron.
“I reckon we can call this a full day’s work,” Ned said as he brought the raft around on the shore side of the stranded yacht. “If we find those ropes a little slack to-morrow morning, we shall know she has slipped off just that much.”
“But suppose it doesn’t happen?” Roy asked.
“Then it’ll be a question of using our muscle at the next high tide, and bringing out a portion of the machinery to lighten her.”
“If we take the engine apart we shall never be able to get it together again,” Vance said in alarm.
“That doesn’t make any difference. We shall have to do it if this plan don’t work, and then try to get her along under sail. We’ve got canvas enough to fit her out in pretty good shape.”