The High School Boys' Canoe Club Part 15

"Oh, I'm so thankful," sighed Laura Bentley. "d.i.c.k, I was afraid there would be but five of you left when I saw Dan being hoisted aboard!"

Soon Dalzell was able to laugh nervously. Then a scowl darkened his face.

"I'm the prize idiot of Gridley!" he muttered faintly.

"What's the matter now?" Dave Darrin demanded.

"The canoe is lost, and it's all my fault," moaned Dalzell. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"Bother the canoe!" cried d.i.c.k impatiently. "We're lucky enough that no lives have been lost."

"But I---I turned and upset the craft," wailed Dan.

"There were others of us," said Greg sheepishly. "If we had had the sense of babies none of us would have turned, and there wouldn't have been any accident."

"This is no time to talk about canoe etiquette," Prescott declared.

"Let us be thankful that we're all here. We'll wait until Dan is himself again before we do any talking."

"I'm all right," protested Dan Dalzell.

"Yes; I believe you are," Driggs nodded.

"'T' any rate, you won't die now of that dose of river water."

"Party ready to come back aboard the launch?" called the helmsman.

"Oh, don't hurry us, just now!" appealed Laura Bentley, going over to him quietly. "We're all so interested and concerned in what is going on over here."

So the helmsman waited, grumbling quietly to himself.

Some twenty of the high school girls had chartered the launch for a morning ride up the river. Dainty enough the girls looked in their cool summer finery. They formed a bright picture as they stood grouped about d.i.c.k & Co. and the other male members of the party.

"You fellows can say all you want to," mumbled Dan, "but the canoe is gone for good and all! We won't have any more fun in it this summer."

"Was that what ailed you, Dan?" teased Darrin. "You felt so badly over the loss of the canoe that you tried to stay on the bottom of the river with it?"

"My foot was caught, and I couldn't get it loose," Dan explained.

"I was trying to free myself, like mad, you may be sure, when all at once I didn't know anything more. You fellows must have had a job prying my foot loose."

"It was something of a job," d.i.c.k smiled, "especially as our time was so limited down there at the bottom with you. The river must be twenty feet deep at that point."

"All of that," affirmed Hiram Driggs.

By this time the high school girls had divided into little groups, each group with a member of d.i.c.k & Co. all to itself. The girls were engaging in that rather senseless though altogether charming hero worship so dear to the heart of the average schoolboy.

"What caused the accident?" inquired one girl.

"Gallantry," smiled Greg. "We were all so anxious to see you girls that we all turned at the same time. We made the canoe heel, and then it filled and went down. But you can't blame us, can you?"

"But you've lost your fine big canoe," cried Laura Bentley, looking as though her pretty eyes were about to fill with tears.

"Yes," d.i.c.k admitted, "and, of course, it's too bad. But a lot of other worse things might have happened, and I guess we'll get over our loss some way."

"But that canoe meant so much for your summer fun," Laura went on. "Oh, it's too bad!"

"Maybe the canoe isn't lost," suggested Hiram Driggs.

"What do you mean, Mr. Driggs?" cried Laura, turning to him quickly.

"Is there any way of bringing the canoe up again?" asked Belle Meade eagerly.

"There may be," Driggs replied quietly. "I'm going to have a try at it anyway."

"All aboard that are going back to the dock," called the helmsman of the launch, who was also her owner.

Laura turned upon him with flashing eyes.

"I don't believe there is anyone going," she said. "We wouldn't leave here anyway, while there's a chance that the high school boys can get their canoe back to the surface of the water. You needn't wait, Mr. Morton. When we're ready we can walk the rest of the way."

CHAPTER VIII

WHAT AN EXPERT CAN DO

"I don't say that I can surely raise the canoe," Mr. Driggs made haste to state, "or that it will be worth the trouble if we do raise it. That canoe may have sunk on river-bottom rocks, and she may be badly staved by this time. But I've sent one of my men to fire the scow engine, and I'm going out to see what can be done in the matter."

"And may we wait here?" asked Laura Bentley, full of eagerness.

"Certainly, young ladies."

"Oh, that's just fine of you, Mr. Driggs," cried Belle Meade.

Smoke soon began to pour out of the short funnel of the working engine on the boatyard scow. It was a clumsy-looking craft---a mere floating platform, with engine, propeller, tiller and a derrick arrangement, but it had done a lot of good work at and about the boatyard.

"You want to get aboard the scow now, boys," called Mr. Driggs.

"If we do anything real out yonder I'll have need of some willing muscle."

"Can't some of the girls go, too?" called a feminine voice. "We're all dreadfully anxious, you know."

Hiram pursed up his mouth, as though reluctant. Then he proposed, grudgingly:

"A committee of two girls might go, if they're sure they'll keep out of the way when we're working. Just two! Which of the young ladies ought we to take, Mr. Prescott?"

"Why, I believe Miss Bentley and Miss Meade will be as satisfactory a committee as can be chosen," d.i.c.k smiled.