Things were going on so well that every one felt much encouraged. Buster was even trying to figure on what sort of speed they were making, and where they would arrive if able to keep on at this pace all through that night.
“Jack said it was about a hundred miles down to the Iron Gate,” he told himself, “where the river makes a turn and starts to divide Serbia from Rumania. Wonder if we could make half of that between now and morning, and what would we do through the day? I must ask Jack first chance I get if he thinks it would be safe for us to keep on down the river by daylight, with soldiers guarding every mile of the banks and ordering us to come ashore and explain who we are.”
Just then Buster gave a sudden start, for Josh had whistled sharply. Jack instantly cut off the power and then started to reverse the engine so that their headway might be reduced to next to nothing.
“Steady, Jack; we’re going to come alongside a pontoon that seems to be partly filled with water!” said Josh in a stage whisper.
He leaned still further over the bow, as though bent upon reaching out to fend off from the object that was floating like a derelict upon the bosom of the great river.
“I’ve got it all right, fellows,” Josh continued saying; “and would you believe it, there’s a wounded man in the same! Guess he’d have gone down in less’n ten minutes only for our coming along.”
“What’s that you say, Josh?” asked Buster eagerly, “a wounded man! How do you know but what he’s dead?”
“Because he’s sitting up here,” came the prompt reply.
Jack knew what that meant. They could not leave a poor fellow badly injured to go down with the leaking pontoon.
“We’ve got to get him aboard here, that’s flat!” said George, as though voicing what was passing through the mind of each of his chums just then.