It was decided to have the boat half decked in, lest they should encounter bad weather, but before tackling that part of the job Tempest and Dave made up their minds to set their vessel afloat for a trial trip, just to see how she took to the water. Before sliding her down the beach they went over every seam and applied pitch liberally. She looked more like a disjointed miniature coal hulk than anything by the time they had her ready, and when Dave ran a critical eye over her he had certain misgivings. “She’s no racer, certainly,” he said, “but considering she is the first boat we ever made the result isn’t so bad, is it?” Tempest glanced over her awkward lines. “I’ll tell you better when I see her dancing over the silvery waves,” he replied cautiously. “We’re ready now, aren’t we? All together. Push.” The _Mud Turtle_ slid down the greased boards with the grace of a lumbering elephant, Dave, Tempest and Jim hanging on to her tenaciously. Just as she plunged into the water they all three leaped up the side. The boat had come down a considerable slope, and threw up a large wave as she dived. The water was dead calm, and the _Mud Turtle_ shot out twenty feet from the shore, but even as she was doing so her builders realized that something was radically wrong. She was canting over at a perilous angle, and the strain of being launched had strained her timbers alarmingly. In half a dozen places jets of water were squirting into her, and in one place where a patch had been sprung the sea was coming in faster than it could have been bailed out. Jim looked at the wreck of their hopes with a perfectly blank expression. Perhaps he had anticipated something of the sort all the time. Dave, standing ankle deep in the bottom of the boat, frowned gloomily. Tempest, leaning against the side of the craft that was highest out of the water, in an attempt to keep her balanced, laughed long and loudly. “I don’t call it a bit funny,” the boy said, watching the _Mud Turtle_ slowly settle down. “I refuse to burst into tears about it,” Tempest said. “It is a whole lot funnier to see her going down now right here than it would have been if we had got about fifty miles away from shore in her and then she had started to play tricks on us.” “I suppose it is, really,” agreed Dave, who was beginning to absorb from Bruce Tempest some of his unquenchable good spirits whatever happened. “But can you suggest what we’re going to do with her now?” “She would fetch a lot of money anywhere――as a curiosity,” said Tempest. “But I’m afraid the buyers of this interesting maritime monster will have to be quick, because in a few more minutes the sad sea waves will have closed over her for ever.” “Can’t we do anything with her?” the boy asked, smiling now in spite of his disappointment. “She is getting too wet to burn. That’s all I can think of.” “What about putting ballast in to keep her upright?”