"Don't mention it, young man, don't mention it! 'Twas the best thing you could have done for us, next to coming out to our rescue, for otherwise we never could have got our boat righted. Of course we couldn't get the hull on its bottom again without unshipping the mast—a job we've been attempting ever since we went over. Although we've cut all the stays, the mast sticks in its step as if it was fastened there or at the deck. We'd have cut the mast ourselves if we'd had anything to do it with, and risked getting back with the oars, which we've kept lashed."
"Let's clear away now," said another. "It's going to take a lot of time to right the hull, and get the water out, and get the wreckage aboard, so we'll have as little as possible to pay for. We'll have to get our young friend to tow us in, if he will, and 'twill be slow work, beating all the way."
"Let me help you all I can," Bruce replied, "for you will have to help me get my own boat back to the bay."
"I should think so," said one of the men, as he hauled Bruce's boat close and sprang into it. "'Twas right enough to run out under a jib, but of course you can't get back that way, and no one man can handle main-sheet and tiller in a breeze like this. Now, boys, I'll get up sail on our friend's boat, and see if we can't get some help from it in righting our own. It will be troublesome work, for our ballast shifted—the wrong way, of course—as we went over."
"Suppose," Bruce suggested quickly, "that two of you come aboard, if you're used to working together in a boat? I don't know much about righting capsized hulls."
"Eh? Well, probably not. You every-day sailors on the coast here aren't stupid enough to let a boat go over, as we amateurs did when a hard puff came to-day. We pass for pretty good sailors, too, in our yacht club at home. Here, Grayden, come aboard. I'll take the tiller, you take the main-sheet, and if our young friend will 'tend jib—"
"Good!" interrupted Bruce, while a great sense of relief came to him. He felt well acquainted with that jib.
The mainsail, in which there already was a reef, was hoisted, the main-sheet of the wrecked boat was taken aboard as a hawser, and after much shouting and tacking and jerking the capsized hull was righted. Then sail was dropped on Bruce's boat, the wreck was hauled alongside, and the three men bailed out the water with their hats, adjusted the ballast, and dragged the wreckage aboard and stored it. One man was left on the hull to steer, a tow-line was put out, sail was made once more on Bruce's boat, and the party started for the bay. When fairly on the proper course the man who had seemed to take the lead in every thing said to Bruce:
"My young friend, we've been working and worrying so hard that I'm afraid we've forgotten our manners, but I want to assure you that we're the most grateful men in this part of the world to-night, unless three others have been rescued from drowning. Eh, boys?"
"Yes, indeed," replied one. "I think, too, for a chap as young as our friend to dash out to sea in such a breeze to save some men whom he never saw before was a remarkably plucky deed. I'm proud to know you, my friend, and I'd like to do something great to prove it."