“You put it in the drawer,” answered Roy.
Their troubles began again. Dick turned and Roy turned and Chub turned, and all the time the launch, having gradually swung her nose down-stream was floating gently back toward Silver Cove. They had accomplished fully three fourths of the distance between the Cove and Fox Island when the engine stopped, but it seemed now that they would soon have the trip to make over again. It was very hot with scarcely any breeze rippling the water, and it was well on toward dinner-time. Chub yielded the wheel to Dick and sat down to get his breath and wipe the perspiration from his face.
“It’s just as well,” grunted Dick. “They don’t tell you anything anyhow. Turn the rudder, Roy, and keep her off that sand-bank.”
“I tell you what we can do,” said Chub as Dick stopped to rest. “Roy and I can get in the canoe and tow her and you can stay in here and steer.”
“It’ll be an all day’s job,” said Roy dispiritedly. “Why not tow her to that landing over there and leave her until we can get some one to fix her up right?”
“You fellows get in the canoe and go on to the island,” said Dick. “I’m going to stay here and make her go. She went once and she can do it again; and she’s got to,” he added doggedly.
“Don’t give up the ship,” cried Chub cheerfully. “We’ll stand by you, Captain. Let me have another go at her.” He seized the handle and was slipping it into the wheel when there was a hail from near by and they looked across the water to where a small cat-boat was bobbing slowly toward them. The boat contained a man in the stern, but who he was they couldn’t make out because of the noonday glare on the surface of the water.
“Engine’s gone back on us,” answered Dick. At that moment the sail swung over and threw the occupant of the cat-boat into shadow.
“Billy Noon, as big as life,” added Chub.
“I’ll see what I can do for you if you want me to,” said the skipper of the sailing craft. “I’ll be there pretty soon. It’s slow going in this breeze.”
The boys sat down, nothing loth, and waited for the launch and sail-boat to draw together.
“What did he tell us he gave for that boat?” asked Roy.
“Four dollars, I think, and a set of dentist’s tools,” Dick replied.
At some time, probably a good many years before, the _Minerva_ had been new and trim. To-day she was a veritable apology for a boat. Some twenty feet long, she was blunt of nose, wide of beam, almost guiltless of paint. The cockpit was only large enough to hold one man and allow the tiller to swing, the rest of the deck space being occupied by a cabin. One port had been closed with a piece of tin through which a length of stove-pipe and an elbow projected. The mast had apparently not been scraped for years and the single sail was gray with age and patched from boom to gaff. Once the hull had been white and the cabin green, but time and the weather had subdued all to a neutral hue that matched the old sail and the weather-stained mast. Closer acquaintance revealed the fact that most of her seams had opened and that she was about as near falling apart as anything could be that still held together.