Page:Nid and Nod (IA nidnod00barb).pdf/206

 ribbon of rushes, a narrow pebbled beach. Some sixty feet out a sunken canal-boat exposed her deck-house above the surface. Six yards or so from the tiny beach the remains of a wooden bulkhead stretched. In places the piles alone remained, but opposite where Laurie had halted his companions there was a twelve-foot stretch of planking still spiked to the piles.

"We could bring her up to that bulkhead and make her fast to the piles at bow and stern. I figure that there's just about enough water there to float her. Then we'd built a sort of bridge or gangway from the bulkhead to the shore. She couldn't get away, and she couldn't sink. That old hulk out beyond would act as a sort of breakwater if there was a storm, too."

"I think it's a perfectly gorgeous idea," said Polly ecstatically. "And just see, Mae, how very, very quiet and respectable it is here!"

Ned, though, seemed bent on enacting the rôle of Mr. Spoilsport. "That's all right," he said, "but how are you going to get permission to tie her up here? This property belongs to some one, doesn't it?"

Laurie looked taken aback. "Why, I don't be