e opposite side and plug it. As he could only expect to do this in
the crudest manner with the appliances at hand, and as he knew the leak
would merely be checked without being stopped, he further proposed to
leave his passengers where they were for a few days, sail for the
nearest port, where he could haul out for repairs, and return for them
as quickly as possible, which proposition was hailed with delight by
both the Rangers and their newly made friends.

This programme was carried out as arranged. That very evening the
stranded vessel was careened by the aid of many willing hands, so that a
temporary patch of tarred canvas and boards could be rudely secured over
the jagged fracture that appeared in her planking just under the bend of
the bilge. It was midnight before this job was finished, and the hold
was pumped comparatively free of water. At daylight next morning, as the
tide served and the wind was fair, the _Millgirl_, after being
revictualled from the tent, sailed away with Captain Crotty at the helm,
and young Jabe working wearily at the pump. Work as he might he could
not gain an inch on the leak, and, in spite of the skipper's cheery
assurance that he would be back again within three or four days, Will
Rogers, who of all the tired Rangers was sole spectator of the
departure, could not repress a feeling of anxiety as the sloop slowly
rounded the point and disappeared.

He was aroused from the reverie into which he had fallen by loud shoots
from the canoe camp, and looking that way saw a line of naked figures
tearing down the beach and dashing into the sparkling waters. The
New-Yorkers were taking the morning plunge, without which no yachtsman
nor canoe-man, who is after all only a yachtsman in a small way, fails
to begin the day when he is on a cruise. This sight at once altered the
current of Will's thoughts, and with a yell that effectually startled
his own camp into wakefulness he tore off his clothing and took a
splendid header from a jutting rock. Two minutes later every Ranger had
followed him, and with the gambols of a school of young porpoises the
boys from Berks were revelling in their first salt-water swim.

"Isn't it glorious!" sputtered Si Carew, as the dripping lads finally
emerged from their bath. "It beats river swimming all to nothing."

"Yes, and doesn't it make a fellow feel fresh and salty?" cried Cracker
Bob Jones.

"And shivery," chattered little Cal Moody.

"And hungry," added Mif