Mr. Sherwood had offered to furnish as many men as could be employed to assist in the work; but the young engineers had so arranged their plans that no help was needed. At sunrise in the morning the boys ran down to the Goblins in the ferry-boat, which was necessary for the transportation of sundry heavy articles. The raft was already there, moored in the proper place for commencing the labors of the day. The engineers were deeply interested in the operations before them, for there was a difficult problem to be solved, which required all their skill and ingenuity; and Lawry felt that his future prosperity and happiness depended upon the success of the undertaking. Their plans and their machinery were yet to be tried, and there was a degree of excitement attending the execution of the project which was as agreeable as it was stimulating to their enthusiastic natures. People had laughed at the idea of two boys raising a steamer burdened with heavy machinery, and both of them felt that their reputations were at stake. "Now, Lawry, we shall soon find out what we can do," said Ethan, as they made fast the ferry-boat to the raft. "I know what we can do," replied the young pilot confidently. "If the casks will float her, she shall come to the top of the water before to-morrow night. Now, Ethan, the first thing is to get a rope under her." "That's easy enough." "It's all easy enough, if you only believe in yourself." A rope of six fathoms in length was selected from the mass of rigging on the raft, and a stone just heavy enough to sink the line attached to the middle of it. Lawry took it in the wherry, sculled to the stern of the sunken steamer, and dropped it into the water. He then carried one end to Ethan, on the raft, while he returned with the other in his boat, which he moored to the opposite side of the _Woodville_. The middle of the rope was kept on the bottom of the lake by the stone, while the two ends were carried forward by the boys until the bight was drawn under the keel of the steamer, as far as her position on the rocks would permit it to go. Lawry's end was made fast around the smokestack, and Ethan's to the raft. One of the hogsheads was next floated out of the boom enclosure, and hauled upon the raft, Lawry adjusted the hogshead slings to the cask. In the middle of the raft an aperture had been left, large enough for a hogshead to pass through, over which a small derrick had been built. A stone post, about the length of the casks, and just heavy enough to sink one of them, had been brought down on the bateau. This "sinker," as the young engineers called it, had been weighed, and it exactly conformed to the requirement of Ethan's figures; it was just sufficient to overcome the flotage power of the cask. "Now, keep cool, Ethan, and we shall find out whether your figures are correct, or not," said Lawry.