Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/277

 locker, holding in his hand one end of a rope which he had coiled down on the bottom of the skiff so that it would run out easily, and as soon as the boat stopped swinging he dived out of sight. When the commotion in the water occasioned by his descent had ceased, his companions could observe every move he made as he scrambled about over the sunken canoe, and presently they saw him coming up.

"Haul away," said Joe, as he shook the water from his face and climbed back into the skiff.

"What's it fast to?" asked Roy.

"A bag of potatoes."

"What did I tell you?" exclaimed Arthur Hastings. "I knew that fellow had been on a plundering expedition."

"But you thought he had been robbing somebody's hen-roost or smoke-house," Roy reminded him.

"And so he has," said Joe. "There's a whole side of bacon down there."

The boys pulled gently on the line, and presently the bag of potatoes came to the surface. It was seized and hauled into the skiff,