True to his nature, he at once began a series of noisy gambols about the farmer's young and high-spirited horses. But soon wearying of that harmless jumping at the wagon, the dog suddenly ran under the forward wheels, and sprang at the long fetlocks of the "near" horse.
Like a flash, the team made a wild plunge, and dashed down the road. The wagon was jerked from beneath the Slug, and the boat and its passengers fell heavily to the ground. The anchor, dropping between the wagon-box and a wheel, became firmly fixed; while the line to which the anchor was attached, being good manilla rope, was uncoiled and dragged after the horses with great rapidity.
Fortunately, the boys and the driver had time to jump out of the "yacht" before the anchor-rope was all "paid out," and so, with the exception of a bad shaking-up and a few bruises, they suffered no injury from their unceremonious disembarking. But the sudden fall had "broken the backbone" of the Slug, as Jack expressed it; and, as if that were not enough, the poor boat, as it hung by the painter, was swung, bumped, knocked, and dragged along, until it was literally reduced to fragments. There was scarcely a residence in all Mud Flat that did not have, long afterward, some satisfactory reminder of the last cruise of the Slug.
But all agreed that the old boat had one virtue—it made famous firewood!
THE GREAT SPRING-BOARD ACT.—BY THE ENTIRE COMPANY.