"I should guess not," laughed Rob. "If a plug that wasn't pounded in any too well in the first place held out all that time before working loose, I can fill up the hole with a fresh piece of wood that will never drop out. Besides, we can keep an eye on it. Any more coffee, Merritt?"
"I'm done, and ready to take that little spin right away. Got your sweater on, I see, Rob. You'll need it, and then some, on the boat, with this wind blowing. I've fetched along my heavy storm coat into the bargain."
"I was meaning to carry mine, you can understand," Rob rejoined, as he picked it up from the chair where he had tossed it.
As soon as both of them were mounted on their wheels, they sped away along the road in the direction of the place where the sailboat had been left. And, as there had been no unusually strong wind from a quarter that would bring the seas into the little sheltered cove, Rob had no fear that his property could have been damaged since they abandoned it on the preceding evening.
Of course they covered the same stretch of road over which they had come while in the wagon drawn by the white nag; and, as they swung past the identical birch tree that marked the spot where the fugitives had turned into the thick undergrowth, Merritt drew the fact to his chum's attention.
"I'll never see a white birch again as long as I live," he said earnestly, "but I'll remember that one and all that happened to us around here. But that cove can't be much more than half a mile away now, Rob. Do you say the same?"
"We're bearing down on the place right now, and you'll find that it lies where that bush stands that holds its red leaves, while others are bare or brown."
"If you say so, I know it's going to be that way," returned the corporal, "because you always look out to mark things down so in your mind. Now, it never occurred to me to take any notice of what the side of the road looked like when we came out on it. I seemed to think that, because I knew that cove so well, I could find it again as easy as falling off a log; but chances are I'd have run away over the mark, if left to myself, because I thought it was further along."
"I've found it pays always to notice things as you go," said Rob, as they jumped from their saddles and pushed the wheels ahead of them while passing along what seemed to be a trail leading toward the shore; "it saves lots of time, and you have a sort of satisfied feeling, just as if you were ready for anything."
They came directly on the cove, and found the boat just as they had left it. Of course the first thing to be done was to lower the water that was in the stern of the boat. This Merritt proceeded to do with a small pail Rob had brought along, while the other boy whittled a stick of white pine until it suited his idea of what a proper plug should be, after which he proceeded to pound it into the round hole in the bottom of the sailboat's hull.