“Better be careful than sorry,” Bob told him when he urged haste. “We’ve got all night.” But finally even careful Bob was convinced that it would be safe to proceed with their undertaking, and using the flash more freely than they had heretofore, they made their way down to the river’s edge. Here, as they expected, they discovered a square-nosed scow about twelve feet long and nearly half that wide. “Do you think that there’s any danger of getting tipped over in that boat?” Rex asked in a tone which he tried to make sound anxious. “Well, if you sit carefully in the exact center and do not move or wink except with both eyes at the same time I hardly think that there is a great deal of danger,” Jack replied in a tone full of sarcasm, but a chuckle just behind him quickly made him wonder if perhaps Rex had fooled him instead of the joke being the other way around. “My, but you bit beautifully,” Bob said with a slight laugh. “I guess I did,” Jack acknowledged somewhat sheepishly. “I’ll hand it to you, Rex. I thought you were in earnest. But come on. Let’s get this racing cutter afloat and get busy. Believe me, it’s going to be some job holding her against this current.” “And it’s apt to take us some time to find the pile of rocks seeing that they are under water and I don’t imagine they made it very large,” Bob said as he put his shoulder to the scow and pushed. The Frenchmen had pulled the heavy boat well up on the shore and it took the united strength of the three to get her back in the water. “The Titanic has nothing on this craft when it comes to dead weight,” Jack panted as the boat finally slid off the bank. “Where’s the oars?” he demanded as he jumped aboard. “Don’t believe there are any,” Bob replied as he threw the rays about the scow. “Funny they’d take them away.” “Perhaps they didn’t have any, but pushed her with their peaveys,” Rex suggested. “Afraid they wouldn’t be long enough,” Bob said still throwing the rays of his light about. “Steady there,” Jack cried. “There’s a couple of long poles up on the shore and seeing that they looked wet, I deduce that they have quite recently been in the water.” “Great, Sherlock,” Bob laughed. “Well, whether my deductions are right or wrong, one thing is certain and that is that those poles are going to be in the water in about three seconds,” Jack declared as he sprang from the boat to return a moment later carrying the two long poles. “They used them all right,” Bob declared, and a moment later the scow was out in the stream. “As near as I can tell,” Bob said, “we want to go straight out.” “No trouble to want to do a thing,” Jack panted a moment later as the full strength of the swift current caught the boat, “but sometimes it’s a whole lot of trouble to get it, and I guess this is going to be one of them.”