way.

CHAPTER XI

GOOD CHEER BY THE CAMP FIRE

Toby made a quick lurch, and managed to snatch up the broken blade of
Steve's now useless oar. As they had no way of mending it, tin, nails,
or hammer, it was next-door to useless to them.

Already that fierce current was seizing them in its remorseless grip;
and the overloaded boat began to spin down-stream, turning around and
around in its helplessness.

"Gee! whiz! what can we do now, Max?" asked Bandy-legs, ready to jump
overboard if the other but said the word, and urge the boat toward the
shore by swimming on his back.

Before Max could frame a reply something happened. Shack leaned
forward from toward the stern and took the oar from the hands of
Bandy-legs.

"Let me show yuh how tuh do it!" he said, not roughly at all, but
eagerly, as though just too well pleased to have it in his power to
assist.

Max understood what he meant to do; in fact, he had been about to
suggest the very same remedy for their ills when Shack made his move.

"There's a sculling hole in the back of the stern seat, Shack!" he
called out, being more up in the bow himself.

The oar upon being fitted in the cavity could be rapidly turned to the
right and to the left, with a peculiar motion known to those who have
learned the art of successfully sculling a craft in this way. It is
wonderful what progress can be made in that fashion. Shack seemed to
know all about it, for presently Bandy-legs emitted a whoop that would
have shamed an Indian brave.

"Say, you're making her just walk along, Shack, that's right!" he
exclaimed.

"And that oar going bad didn't knock us out at all, did it?" demanded
Steve, who felt sorely distressed because it had been his bungling way
of rowing that had brought about their trouble, and with Bessie on
board too, which cut him worse than anything else.

"Seems like it wouldn't," Max told him, feeling quite satisfied himself.

Shack kept working away like a good fellow, and the boat drew closer
and closer to the shore all the time. There was now no reason to
believe that they would have any more trouble in landing; and Max began
to take closer notice of the shore than he had up to that time done.

"None of us have ever been as far down the river as this," he remarked;
"I know I haven't, anyway."

"I was down once years ago, and saw the big falls where we might have
taken a header if we'd kept drifting," Bandy-legs explained; "but say,
I don'