Case hastened to the prow and lifted the end of the cable. There was no doubt that it had been cut. Clay made a quick examination of the motors and saw that the electrical connection had been broken. Then Jule called out in alarm that they were drifting directly upon a rocky island.
The _Rambler_, drifting broadside to the current, threatened to strike full upon a rocky promontory projecting from the island which lay in the course of the boat. In vain Case tugged at the tiller ropes. There was no steerage way, and the boat was beyond control.
"It looks like the last of the _Rambler_!" Case cried as the boat drifted down. "The rock ahead will cut her in two if we strike it."
But there was a current crossing the rocky point from north to south, and the boat, catching it, was drawn away, so that in time, she came, stern first, to the curve of a little channel into which the waters drew. For a moment, the prow swung out, and the possibility of a continuation of the vagrant journey was imminent.
However, before the sweep of water turned the prow fairly around, Alex was over the gunwale, clinging with all his might to the broken cable. Clay and Jule were at his side in a moment and, half swimming, half stumbling, quite up to their chins in the cold water, they held the boat until the current swept it farther over on the sandy beach that bordered the cove.
"There you are!" shouted Alex, wading, dripping, from the river. "The next time I take a trip on the _Rambler_, I'm going to wear a diving suit. I'm dead tired of getting wet."
"You're lucky not to be at the bottom of the river!" Clay announced.
The rowboat, which lay upon the roof of the cabin, was now brought down, a cable was taken out of the store room, and the _Rambler_ firmly secured to a great rock which towered above the slope of the cove.
The boys stood for a moment looking over the surface of the river, still bathed in moonlight, then Alex rushed into the cabin and brought out a field glass.
"What I want to know just now, is who cut that cable," he said.
"That's easy," Jule replied. "It was the innocent little boy who had read all about the _Rambler_ in the Quebec newspaper."
Alex swept the river with the glass for a time and then passed it to Clay.