"Do you see that anchor forward?" asked Frank, pointing from where they stood on the raised deck aft. "Well, that's got a good long stout chain attached and is placed where a kick will send it over. Notice old Quita squatting close by? Think he's taking a snooze, he seems so quiet? But all the time the old chap's on the alert, and he has his orders, too."
"To upset the anchor over the bow, you mean?" asked Andy.
"Just that," came Frank's reply. "If anything happens to the machinery you'll hear a series of quick whistles from Felipe. The boat won't even have a chance to lose headway before over plumps the big mudhook, and we'll just take a rest out in the river until repairs can be made again by Engineer McClintock and his assistants."
Andy looked at his chum admiringly.
"Blessed if you don't just think of everything!" he said; "and get ready long before it happens. However do you do it, Frank?"
"Oh, it's easy, once you make up your mind," laughed the other. "I took to it long before this new Boy Scout movement started. You know they've got as their leading motto the words: 'Be prepared.' And there never was a better slogan ever given to boys. Think how many things might be avoided if we were always prepared."
"Yes, I've given the subject much thought," grumbled Andy; "but somehow I seem to slip up when it comes to the critical time. I stay awake eleven hours, and just when I doze off in the twelfth watch the blamed thing happens! It's always that way, seems to me. How can a fellow stay awake all the time, tell me that?"
"Oh, rats! There's no need of that. Just fix things so you'll be aroused when it comes along, and be ready to turn the tables."
So they talked away into the afternoon. The engine seemed to be on its best behavior. McClintock, the Scotch engineer, who was the only foreigner aboard besides the boys, reported that he was beginning to have more faith in the machinery. The work of the last twenty odd hours had certainly been a pretty heavy tax on it and everything seemed to be going like clockwork.
"I only hope it'll keep up, then," said Andy. "One more night is all I ask. Then Felipe promises to have us at our journey's end, when I can see and talk to the very man who picked up that wonderful little parachute, with its message from the unknown valley among the cliffs. I wish the time was here right now."