"And I'll help!" offered Sue, for she knew what rolling a boat into the water meant—she had often seen her father do it.
Getting the raft into Squaw River was not quite as hard as putting the craft together. By using a long pole Bunny managed to raise up one edge of his nailed-together boards and logs, and under it Sue slipped a round roller, which was a short piece of round tree trunk. Then when Bunny raised up the other side of the raft his sister slipped under it another roller.
"Now she'll slide!" cried Bunny, as he had often heard his father or Bunker Blue say.
With his long pole Bunny now pried up on the rear of the raft. At first it did not move, and Bunny began to be afraid he and Sue would not, after all, have a voyage down the river.
But at last it slid a little bit, and then more and more, until finally it was rolling along quite rapidly. As the bank sloped down to the river like a little hill, Bunny hardly had to push or pry at all now, and a minute later the raft was floating in the water.
It would have floated away, but Bunny had tied a rope to one edge, and the other end of the rope he had fastened to a tree stump on shore, so the raft was "made fast," as a sailor would say. Bunny had been around his father's dock enough to know that when one puts a boat into the water one must make it fast or it will be lost.
"Isn't our raft nice, Bunny?" exclaimed Sue, as she saw it floating in the water.
"Yes," Bunny agreed, "we'll have lots of fun! Wait till I get the lunch and we'll start."
"I want a pole so I can help push," said Sue.
"All right. You bring the bag of lunch and I'll get you a pole," promised Bunny.