CHAPTER II.
THE STRANGE LEAK.
"Gee whiz! but this is a bad job!" Merritt remarked, after the four of them had clambered over the bow of the stranded sailboat. "Here we are as much as three miles away from home, with night coming on and not much chance of getting the boat fixed so we can go on again in her."
"She never played you such a mean trick before, did she, Rob?" asked Andy, who had managed to get his feet wet in making a jump for the sandy beach, but, boylike, seemed to care very little about such a small thing.
"No, and I'm wondering right now what could have happened to make her spring a big leak like that all of a sudden," replied the other.
As though impelled by curiosity, Rob once more climbed aboard the boat and started to look around. One of the first things he did was to fling ashore a sack that seemed to be pretty heavy,—as might be expected, since it contained the half bushel of extra large oysters for which he had been sent to the beds near the ocean side of the bay, a long way from Hampton town.
"I'm bound to get that sack home with me if I have to carry it on my back," he called out; at which the other boys, of course, declared that they would willingly "spell" him, though the prospect could not have seemed very inviting.
"But see here, will it be safe to leave the boat in this little cove all night with a big storm heading along up the coast?" Merritt asked next.
"Safe or not," came from the one aboard the stranded boat, "there's nothing else we can do, is there? Besides, if that storm holds off till noon, I'll be up here on my wheel the first thing to-morrow, bale her out, fix the leak, and work her back home by hook or crook. Hello! what in the wide world does this mean, now?"