"Jump in. She'll float now."
"Shove, or she'll go back, and get aground again."
"There's the dam. Now we've got a job on hand."
The dam was not a high one, but no two boys of their size could have lifted the Ark over it. Quill Sanders had thought of that, and the little craft was pulled ashore at a spot where farmers coming to the mill drove down to water their horses.
"There's just a good road all around from here to the pond. Now for the rollers, Mort."
Two bits of round poles, about three inches thick and four feet long, were a great help in getting the Ark up the slope, but it was slow work for all that. No man in Corry Centre could have hired any two small boys to undertake it. Quill and Mort did it all the more eagerly because no living being would have given them a cent for doing it.
The miller came out, indeed, to shout after them:
"Hullo, boys, what're ye up to?"
"Going to Pawg Lake," said Quill, proudly. "Your old dam's in the way, and we're a-dodgin' 'round it."
"Pawg Lake! I declare! Do ye spect to ever git back agin?"