Just where the gunwale joined the bottom planks of the boat a great seam had been wrenched open, and the water was actually spouting and spurting through it. “There’s one consolation,” said Phil. “There isn’t any other leak like this anywhere.” “How do you know?” “Why, if there were two such, we should have gone to Davy Jones’s locker long ago.” Then the two boys set to work trying to fasten a board over the open seam, but their efforts failed completely. Their united strength was not sufficient even to press the board against the timbers, much less to hold it in place long enough to nail it there. For the whole weight of the boat and cargo was pressing down into the river and forcing this jet of water upward through the opening. “Call the entire crew, Irv,” said Phil. “We shall need them all for this job--including the fellow at the pump.” Then, while Irv went to summon the boys, Phil secured a piece of plank three inches thick, very green and very heavy, which had been purchased at Vevay to serve as a staging over which to roll freight in taking it on or discharging it. “Get me the brace and bit, Will--the quarter-inch auger bit. And, Ed, see if you can find the spikes that were left over in building the boat. Bring the heaviest hammers we’ve got too, some of you.” All this while the boy was measuring, calculating, sawing, and hewing with an axe to fit his great plank to its place. He bored holes in it at intervals, to facilitate the driving of spikes through its tough and tenacious thickness. When all was ready, the boys made a strenuous effort to force the timber down against the crack, but to no purpose. Their strength and weight were not sufficient. Presently a happy thought struck Will Moreraud. “Wait a minute,” he said, and with that he rolled several barrels of corn meal into the open space. “Now,” he cried, “three of you stand on one end of the plank while I drive it into place. Let the other end ride free of the bottom, but one of you hold it so that it can’t slew away from the gunwale.” The boys did this, and Will succeeded in driving one end of the timber into place while three of his comrades stood upon that end of it. The other end was held up by the waterspout a foot from the bottom of the boat, but Ed was holding it against the gunwale, in the place where it was desired to force it down. “Now, hold it so,” said Will, “and I’ll force it down.” With that he turned a two-hundred-pound barrel of meal on end upon the plank just beyond the point where the three boys were standing. This pressed the timber down somewhat, and Will helped it with another barrel. Then he began bringing heavy sacks of corn and oats, so heavy that he could scarcely handle them. These he piled high on top of the meal barrels, and the combined weight forced the plank down to within an inch of the bottom.