“Afraid they wouldn’t be long enough,” Bob said still throwing the rays of his light about.
“Steady there,” Jack cried. “There’s a couple of long poles up on the shore and seeing that they looked wet, I deduce that they have quite recently been in the water.”
“Great, Sherlock,” Bob laughed.
“Well, whether my deductions are right or wrong, one thing is certain and that is that those poles are going to be in the water in about three seconds,” Jack declared as he sprang from the boat to return a moment later carrying the two long poles.
“They used them all right,” Bob declared, and a moment later the scow was out in the stream.
“As near as I can tell,” Bob said, “we want to go straight out.”
“No trouble to want to do a thing,” Jack panted a moment later as the full strength of the swift current caught the boat, “but sometimes it’s a whole lot of trouble to get it, and I guess this is going to be one of them.”
A few feet out from the shore the water was too deep for Rex to reach bottom with his peavey and as there were but two of the poles, he was obliged to sit in idleness while Bob and Jack fought, with all their strength, to keep the unwieldy craft from being swept down stream.
“You’re holding your own,” he encouraged them.
“That’s what the corporal said,” Jack laughed. “Tell you the story later,” he panted.