"But where's my dummy?" demanded Sam.
"That's right," said Fred. "We never fished it out of the river. I guess you'll find it all right, Sam, somewhere in the slip."
In a brief time Sam's possession was rescued from its place of peril, but the boatman's lamentations were the last words the boys heard when they departed.
"Color's all washed out. It doesn't look more than half human," Sam was declaring as he stood in the moonlight examining the dummy which he had fashioned after his arrival at the boat-house. "Sam has an extra assortment of legs and arms in his room," exclaimed Grant, as the boys entered the house. "He seems possessed to have them around him."
"Perhaps they will come in handy some day," laughed George.
"I don't know how."
On the following morning, however, when the Black Growler was withdrawn from the slip and once more was sent over a part of the course there was a goodly supply of Sam's legs and arms on board. Just why he had insisted upon taking them, he did not explain. So human were the pieces in their appearance that a stranger might have been startled when he first saw the heap.
As usual the Varmint II was speedily trailing the Black Growler. Indeed it was not long before the two boats were moving side by side, only a few feet intervening.
The Go Ahead boys had been singing a song which has long been famous on the St. Lawrence,
"Saw my leg off,
Saw my leg off,
Saw my leg off,
Short!"