“What will Jack say,” remarked Little Tim, ruefully, “if he gets here and finds the boat gone? We can’t get away to give the alarm, either. We’ve got to stay here till he comes back.” “Never mind,” exclaimed Joe, bitterly. “They can’t keep it long. We’ll prove in the end that we saved her.” “Yes, but that means half the summer wasted in fighting over it,” said George Baker, despondently. “You see, when one person gets hold of a thing, that gives him some advantage. They will have that boat afloat, and rigged, before they can be sued.” The task of making the _Surprise_ tight enough to float was, however, not to be so easy as it might appear at first glance. It was a nice and particular job fitting in new planking where the hole had been stove. It took a good part of the day, though John Hart and his comrades worked industriously. Then it was apparent that the yacht had strained all along her bilge badly and about the centreboard, so that it would require all of another day to calk her and set the nails that had been wrenched loose. By evening of the next day, however, she was ready for hauling off, in the opinion of John Hart; and they would do that in the morning and tow her back to Southport. But they had not reckoned wholly with Joe and his crew. Finding themselves outmatched in strength, these youngsters had wandered disconsolately about the little island for the last two days, fishing and swimming and passing the time as best they could; watching eagerly out through the Thoroughfare, in hopes that Harvey and Henry Burns and the others might put in an appearance; and all the while keeping sharp watch of the progress of work upon the _Surprise_. Hart and the other three, fearing no interruption from the boys, had ignored them. At night they went out aboard the _Seagull_, where they had provided temporary quarters for all four of them by stretching the mainsail over the boom for a shelter, and tying it to the rail at the edges. “They’re all ready to haul her off in the morning, I think,” said Joe Hinman, as the boys sat gloomily by the door of the shed on the evening of the second day after the arrival of the men. “I heard them singing and laughing out aboard, and saying something about ‘to-morrow’ and ‘Southport.’ Oh, if there was only another day’s work on her, the boys might get here in time yet.” “Then I’ll keep her here another day,” exclaimed Little Tim, “if they beat me black and blue for it.” “You can’t do it,” said Joe. “Can’t I, though?” responded Tim. “Well, watch me and see. Will you fellows help?” The boys assented, not to be outdone in courage by the smallest one of them. “We can do it,” said Little Tim. “They leave their tools aboard the cabin of the _Surprise_ at night. I saw John Hart put the box in there before he went out aboard. He said another hour’s work would fix something or other. I couldn’t hear what. But we’ll fix her so it will take longer than that, I reckon.”