But there was no stopping her from before—the horses were fairly off their feet. The running line was beginning to burn Kenneth’s and Arthur’s hands. She was running away, sure enough, and to certain destruction if she was not stopped at once.
Frank’s face was pale and anxious as he shouted and strained back on the reins, trying to stop his team; Clyde, utterly impotent, ran from side to side, looking in vain for a stick or log with which to check the wheels. Kenneth and Arthur clung desperately to the line, which, in spite of all, they could not control.
The speed of the boat was certainly growing faster and faster every second. The work of months and the means of a glorious trip was going to destruction.
“Here, Arthur, quick! I’ll try to hold, while you take a double turn round that other tree—quick—quick!” cried Kenneth, his anxiety almost taking away his voice for the moment.
Arthur turned to obey. “Quick—for the love of Moses, quick!”
Just in time, Arthur got the turns round the tree, for Kenneth could not stand the strain on his hands longer and he dropped the rope. His weight off the restraining line, the truck almost pushed the horses over on their heads. But the slack was taken up in a minute, and though the line creaked ominously under the strain, and stood as taut as a harp string, it held; the truck slackened speed.
“Kick me round the block, will you, Arthur, for a chump,” Ransom said as he came up to his friend, bandaging his blistered hands with his handkerchief as he spoke. “To let a weight like that go without taking a turn, was about the most foolish thing that I ever did. Let her go, easy, now.”
The other three boys said nothing for a while, but when the bottom of the hill was reached all were rather limp.
To drag the boat out of the valley was about as difficult as letting her down into it, and it consumed the balance of the daylight. The close of the second day saw the boat resting on the launching ways, and the boys were triumphant.
“If the rest of our journey is as slow as this,” Arthur remarked as he put on his coat to go home, “we’ll be ancient mariners before we cover the 6,000 miles.”