Page:Boys of Columbia High on the River.djvu/14

4 bored that hole through your boat on purpose?" said Lanky, with rising indignation.

"That's just what I believe. I know for a fact that there was no such round opening in that garboard streak three days ago, for I went over every inch of it with a varnish brush, and examined it closely."

"This is something interesting you're telling me. But why didn't we notice it long ago—why didn't the river slip in early in our trip up over the race course?" and Lanky pushed his nose closer to the gap to examine it better.

"I don't exactly know. But evidently there must have been a plug fixed in the hole, and so arranged that sooner or later the feet of a rower would be apt to dislodge the same. Then the water would run in fast," muttered Frank, looking moodily at the work of a vandal.

It was not so much the wanton destruction of his property that made him angry, as the malicious spirit back of the thing.. He could give a good guess, too, as to whom he might thank for the mean trick.

"I see now. It just held in till we were about to land on Rattail Island, and then let go. That plug was in the conspiracy to maroon us here, all right. But it's a measly old game, whoever did it. Where d'ye suppose the plug has gone to, Frank?"