"Ned! Ned!" he shouted eagerly, "can you do anything with this outline? I forgot I had it."
Ned's face flushed with joy, and paddling alongside of Nugget he snatched the cord.
"Follow me to the shore," he cried, "and you too, Randy."
An instant later the three lads were standing on the gravel beach, separated from the whirlpool by no less than sixty or seventy feet.
Ned waved his hand to Clay, and shouted hoarsely: "Fight hard, old fellow! We'll save you in a minute."
Then turning quickly to his companions he demanded: "How long is this line?"
"One hundred and forty feet," answered Nugget. "The man I bought it from, said so."
Ned tied the end of it to a ring in the stern of the Pioneer, and ran down the beach, unrolling the ball as he went. Sixty feet away he stopped and cut the cord, then he hurried back with the remainder in his hand. He tied a short stick to the end of the ball, and throwing both into his canoe scrambled after them.
"Now you fellows keep tight hold of that," he directed, pointing to the cord that lay outstretched on the beach. "Pay it out as I go, and when I give the word pull with all your might."
Randy and Nugget began to understand now, and they allowed the line to trail through their fingers as Ned paddled furiously away, heading for a point a little above the whirlpool.