Page:Dave Porter and his Classmates.djvu/292

268 boat was stuck on a sandbar, the rowers took care not to ground their craft.

"Help us, won't you, please!" cried Vera.

"Yes, yes, take us off!" added Mary.

"We don't want to stay on this motor boat any longer!" exclaimed Sadie.

"I guess we can take the girls off," said Phil. "But what about Poole and Merwell?"

"We might come back for them," answered Ben. "We can't leave them here very well."

With care the rowboat was brought to the side of the motor boat and the girls were assisted from one craft to the other.

"Can't you take us?" asked Poole.

"Not now," said Roger. "We can come back later."

The rowboat was rather crowded, but this could not be altered. The boys pulled away from the motor boat, and then asked the girls where they wished to be landed.

"We were going to Perry's Point, across the river," explained Vera. "But those boys kept us out so long I think we'd better go home." And then she and the others told how they had been walking toward the place where an old man kept a ferry, when they had been hailed by Merwell, who had offered to take them across.

"But they didn't take us across at all!" cried