e _Whitewing_ brought up with a
crash that pitched everybody into the bottom of the boat. She had struck
a sunken rock, and the speed at which she was going was so great that
one of her planks was stove in. Before the boys could pick themselves
up, the water had rushed in, and was rising rapidly.

"Jump overboard everybody!" cried Harry. "She won't float with us in
her."

There was no time in which to pull off shirts and trousers, and the boys
plunged overboard without even taking their hats off. They then took
hold of the boat, two on each side of her, and swam toward the shore.
With so much water in her, the boat was tremendously heavy; but the boys
persevered, and finally reached shallow water, where they could wade and
drag her out on the sand.

"Here we are wet again!" exclaimed Jim. "The blankets are wet too this
time."

"Never mind," replied Tom; "it's not more than five o'clock, and we can
get them dry before night."

"We'll have to work pretty fast, then," said Harry. "Jim and Joe had
better build a big fire, and dry the things, while you and I empty the
boat; or I'll empty the boat, and you can pitch the tent. We'll have to
put off supper till we can make sure of a dry bed."

Harry took the things out of the boat one by one. Everything was wet
except the contents of the tin boxes, into which the water luckily had
not penetrated. As soon as the fire was built, Jim and Joe gave their
whole attention to drying the blankets and the spare clothing; and when
the boat was emptied, it was found that a hole nearly six inches long
and four inches wide had been made through one of the bottom planks.
Harry and Tom set to work to mend it. They took a piece of canvas--which
had luckily been kept in one of the tin boxes, and was quite dry--and
tacked it neatly over the outside of the hole.

They next covered the canvas with a thin coating of white lead, except
at the edges, where the white lead was laid on very thickly. Over the
canvas the piece of zinc that had been brought for just such a purpose
was carefully tacked, and then thin strips of wood were placed over the
edges of the tin, and screwed down tightly with screws that went through
the zinc, but not through the canvas. Finally, white lead was put all
around the outer edge of the zinc, and the boat was then left
bottom-side up on the sand, so that the white lead could harden by
exposure to the air.

Nobody cared to go for milk in wet clothes; and so, when t