"I don't think we are, and most of the fellows wouldn't enjoy anything better than a skirmish with them," replied Dick Short. "But the student that does anything to bring on a row with them would be out of favor with the principal, and might have to spend a few days in the brig for it." Paul had never heard of the brig, and Dick described the strong-room, or black hole, to him. The brig is the place of confinement, or prison, on board ships of war, and the principal had such an apartment in the dormitory. But there had been very little use for it since the earlier days of the school, and not half a dozen of the students had ever seen the inside of it. "I don't see any of the Chesterfield boats," added Paul, as he looked along the shore. "By the big wooden spoon! Isn't the lake stirred up ahead of us!" "The wind has full sweep across North West Bay, where the lake is four miles wide. It looks decidedly foamy over in Button Bay," replied Dick Short. "By the big wooden spoon!" repeated Paul, as he rose in his seat in the stern-sheets. "Sit down, Paul," said the coxswain, rather sharply. "We don't allow any fellow to stand up in this boat when he gets excited. What is the matter now?" "There is a sailboat over there, and she looks as though she was tipping over!" exclaimed Paul, dropping into his seat. "She is over, as true as you live," added Dick, rather louder than he usually spoke, but with hardly more excitement, so thoroughly had the students been trained to keep cool in emergencies. At the same time he glanced at his crew; but not one of them had turned around to obtain a view of the event described by Paul and the coxswain, for they had been schooled to keep their eyes on the officer of the boat. The crew took more pride in observing this general order than almost any other. Dick Short gazed with all his might at the struggling sailboat, for a moment, but he seemed to be in doubt, for the craft was at least a mile distant. Besides himself, no one but Paul, whose judgment in regard to the management of a sailboat was not to be relied upon, had even glanced in the direction indicated. "Stand by to toss!" called Dick. "Toss!" At the last word the crew brought their oars to a perpendicular. "Now you can look, and I wish you would do so," continued the coxswain, as he fixed his own gaze upon the sail, which was dead to leeward, and some distance south of Button Island. The students were glad enough of the permission, for they had as much curiosity, and were as much disposed to get excited, as the average of boys. They gazed with all their eyes at the sail in the distance. "What do you think of it, Dory?" asked Dick Short. "I should say that sailboat is half full of water, and that the skipper has lost his head," replied Dory, after he had taken in the situation. "She is rolling in the trough of the sea, and they seem to be trying to take in sail."