"No, no!" shouted the students.
"We are on the water now, and it is more proper that the commodore should have the entire command. When we are on shore again, I will resume my office. I will obey all the commodore's orders now, and the rest of you will do the same."
I protested, but the general insisted. We finally agreed to the proposition, and for the time I became the commander of the expedition. Our first business was to float the steamer. Vallington went back to the engine-room, and I resumed my place at the wheel. I rang to back her, and the paddles slapped the water furiously for a time, but without producing any effect. The steamer had taken the ground harder than I supposed. She had run her bow upon the gradual slope of the bottom till the wheels were powerless to move her.
The boys looked at one another in blank dismay, and seemed to feel just as though the enemy were to "bag" them, as a sportsman does the game he has brought down. I did not despair yet. From the wheel-house I had surveyed the surroundings, and a plan had occurred to me by which I hoped to work the Adieno out of her uncomfortable position.
"No go," said Vallington, as we met together on the main deck.
"Not yet; but we won't give it up. The bow had dug into the bottom more than I supposed. We must carry a line ashore, and make fast to one of those trees; then I think we can pull her off."
Bob Hale, with two others, was sent ashore on the North Sister in the Splash, carrying the end of a long rope. When he had secured it to a large tree on the shore, I took the other end, the line passing through a round hawse-hole forward, and conveyed it aft to the shaft. After winding it four or five times round the shaft, I told the boys to haul it taut; and about twenty of them laid hold of the rope to "take in the slack," if we were fortunate enough to obtain any.
"Bully for you," said Vallington, as he comprehended my arrangement.
"If the rope don't break, something will come," I replied.
I had been obliged to join several ropes, in order to form one long enough; but having carefully avoided "granny knots," I hoped it would hold. The bearing of the line was at the hawse-hole, near the bow of the boat; and as the power was applied to the rope by turning the wheel and shaft, the tendency was to haul the forward end of the boat off the ground into the deeper water.