Only a few moments before this, Tom and Bob and Henry Burns and Harvey had gone down to the shore, after bidding the crew good night.
“How did you happen to bring the canoe, Jack?” inquired Allan Harding. “I thought you wasn’t going to use that any more.”
“Well, I did say so last year,” replied Harvey. “I thought I had come too near drowning ever to enjoy it again. But Tom and Bob were coming down in theirs, so Henry and I got mine down from the Warren’s shed.”
“We’ll race you up,” said Tom.
“All right,” said Harvey. “I think you can beat us, though.”
For a short distance, however, Henry Burns and Harvey held their own. Then the skill of the other two, and their long practice of paddling together, began to tell, and their canoe forged ahead.
“It’s no use, Henry,” said Harvey, good-naturedly. “I can’t handle a paddle with Tom Harris. They have kept a straight line, but I can’t keep this craft up to her course.”
They slowed down, accordingly, and the other canoe left them considerably astern. Then Tom, turning and discovering that the others had fallen back, spoke to Bob, and they waited for the second canoe to come up.
It was at this very moment that Mr. Carleton, hatchet in hand, had smashed the lock.
“Hark! what was that?” exclaimed Bob White. “Did you hear it? That was out aboard the Viking.”