“No trouble getting there with this boat, if only there’s enough water,” the steersman answered, with a confidence that he believed was not going to be misplaced. “Billy, you’re up in the bow, so suppose you take that pole and keep finding what the depth is. Sing out to me as often as you dip.”
“But gee whittaker, Hugh! I don’t know what a fathom is,” protested Billy, although he did snatch up the push pole indicated, and commenced dipping it straight down.
“Then go by feet, so long as you tell me of any shoaling,” explained Hugh.
“Three feet, then. Now two and three-quarters. Going at two and three-quarters. Two and a half! Are you all done? Oh! Two and a quarter, and sold to the gentleman over there. How’s this, Hugh?”
“We’re in close enough, and I’ll try to hold her here against the current while Tip has a confab with his comrade,” announced the pilot, who wished to let the local boys have all the say possible in the management of things, so that they might feel the responsibility that rested on their shoulders, and at the same time reap the full reward that was to come.
“What is it, Wash?” asked Tip, flushing with pleasure when he heard Hugh designate him as the one to do the talking, when some fellows would have monopolized all rights to that themselves; and it increased his respect for the visiting comrade more than ever.
“We’re getting on hunky-dory here, Tip,” replied the leader of the boat party, as he took a package of bed clothes from one of the other scouts who appeared at the open window just then and deposited it in the stern of the craft, where a woman and three children were huddled, looking the picture of despair.
“Then you didn’t want any help, I take it?” questioned Tip Lange.
“Not that we know of, Tip. But this woman says her sister must be in a terribly bad way. She lives in a tumble-down shanty of a house around the next corner, that must be a heap deeper in the water than this one is. If it hasn’t floated away before now it’s apt to go any old time. The current is too swift for us to hold our own with oars, and besides, this is such a heavy boat.”
“Then you want us to try for it, do you, Wash?” demanded Tip. “How about it, Commodore? Will the launch stand out against that current?”