John Hart and his comrades seemed a bit nonplussed at this. It did put a different phase upon the matter. They looked at one another inquiringly for a moment. But they were rough fellows, not given to weighing evidence critically. Might was right with them if it could be carried through.
“That’s a lie!” exclaimed John Hart, suddenly, advancing toward Joe Hinman. “You think you can fool us with your city ways, but you’d better look out. Where are all these fine youngsters that you say raised the boat? This boat is ours, because we saved her. You get out and don’t come around bothering, because we won’t stand any nonsense.”
There was no present hope for Joe and his crew. They were clearly outmatched. They withdrew, therefore, to the shed, cooked their breakfast and ate it with diminished appetites.
“What will Jack say,” remarked Little Tim, ruefully, “if he gets here and finds the boat gone? We can’t get away to give the alarm, either. We’ve got to stay here till he comes back.”
“Never mind,” exclaimed Joe, bitterly. “They can’t keep it long. We’ll prove in the end that we saved her.”
“Yes, but that means half the summer wasted in fighting over it,” said George Baker, despondently. “You see, when one person gets hold of a thing, that gives him some advantage. They will have that boat afloat, and rigged, before they can be sued.”
The task of making the Surprise tight enough to float was, however, not to be so easy as it might appear at first glance. It was a nice and particular job fitting in new planking where the hole had been stove. It took a good part of the day, though John Hart and his comrades worked industriously.
Then it was apparent that the yacht had strained all along her bilge badly and about the centreboard, so that it would require all of another day to calk her and set the nails that had been wrenched loose. By evening of the next day, however, she was ready for hauling off, in the opinion of John Hart; and they would do that in the morning and tow her back to Southport.
But they had not reckoned wholly with Joe and his crew. Finding themselves outmatched in strength, these youngsters had wandered disconsolately about the little island for the last two days, fishing and swimming and passing the time as best they could; watching eagerly out through the Thoroughfare, in hopes that Harvey and Henry Burns and the others might put in an appearance; and all the while keeping sharp watch of the progress of work upon the Surprise.
Hart and the other three, fearing no interruption from the boys, had ignored them. At night they went out aboard the Seagull, where they had provided temporary quarters for all four of them by stretching the mainsail over the boom for a shelter, and tying it to the rail at the edges.