"I shall freeze to death," said Lick Milton, his teeth chattering like those of a person with the ague.
"So shall I! And we shall all catch our death of cold," added Jim Alburgh.
"I have one cold now, and I shall have another on top of it," shivered Corny Minkfield.
"All the crew in the boat!" shouted Dory, with a vim that showed he was determined to do something.
"All aboard!" cried half a dozen others, as they tumbled into the barge.
Half the crew were required to shove her off before they took their places; but in a minute they were all afloat, wondering what the brisk coxswain intended to do.
"We can get warm if we can't do anything else," said Dory, as he took the tiller lines in his hands, "Up oars! Shove off! Let fall! Give way!" The last order was given when the boat had been shoved clear of the sands of the beach, and had come about so that it was headed out into the lake.
The unclothed rowers bent to their oars, and the Winooski began to spin through the water. The exercise was in the highest degree exhilarating under the circumstances. Dory had the worst of it for he had no oar to pull; but he swayed his body with more than usual vigor, and the wind of the crew was not likely to last a great while under the rapid movements required of them.