It had embedded itself in the planking, and when he yanked it out we could see through to the water underneath. The other stones had left bad dents and bruises on the three half-inch planking, but none had gone through except the eight-inch shell above referred to.
"Lucky we brought those extra boards along," said Jim. "We will soon fix up that hole in her bow."
"And put a new roof on the cabin," I pleaded, "that's up to Tom because the stone that broke it hit him on the leg."
"You've got a logical mind, haven't you?" sneered Tom. "It wasn' my fault that the coon Indian threw the rock that did the smashing."
"Don't go to arguing, Tom," said Jim, "but get to work; Jo is just guying you, Tom," he concluded.
It sounded like a carpenter shop set up in that grim canyon, for a while, with the drawn rip of the saw and the ringing of the hammers driving home the nails.
Every sound was sent bounding and echoing from rock to rock on either side, until the canyon was like one great clangorous workshop.
In an hour's time we had everything shipshape again. The bow was repaired, also the hole in the deck and in the cabin roof.
The scars remained upon the deck alongside, but these we were rather proud of and we felt we had a right, for our boat had proved herself stanch and strong enough to resist every danger and every attack.
The arrows we had extracted and kept for curiosities. They were of darker wood than those of the northern tribes we had skirmished with. They were also tipped with a different variety of stone, with green streaks running through it.