"Oh, that doesn't bother me one little bit just now. All I'm thinking about is how under the sun we're going to get out of this pickle," said Frank, sweeping his hand around, as if to call attention to the angry water that leaped and boiled in a frenzy of eagerness to get at its expected victims.
"Can't swim to the shore, that's sure. I suppose we'll just have to slip in again and make another turn of it. Thank goodness! the bottom of the old rapids is in sight, and as Bluff and Reddy have picked up our boat and the paddle, they could turn their hands at life saving when we came bobbing along."
"Hold on! Don't be rash, Jerry!" called Frank.
"Well, have you got anything better to say about it—any bright scheme to propose that
offers to soften the blow?" demanded the other, pausing in his movement toward slipping off his unstable seat.
"I've just thought of something," answered Frank.
"Good for you, then. I guess I'm too badly rattled just now, for once, to do much thinking. What's the game, Frank?"
"Why not let Reddy and his reliable old rope come into play again?"
"Say! we'll have to beg or buy that clothesline from Reddy when we go away from here, and hang it up in our clubroom, as the most valuable asset we have. Without it what would become of us, eh? Talk about your trained nurses! That fellow is a whole hospital to the tenderfoot crowd. Call to him, please, and enlist his sympathy in the noble cause of yanking us in out of the wet."
So Frank did shout to the cowboy, who, having beached the two boats below the rapids, was hurrying up the shore. Mr. Mabie, too, had joined Will, so that presently the entire balance of the little party had gathered opposite.