CHAPTER III.

A QUESTION DEBATED AND SETTLED.

The Thunderer had foundered; but not being provided with ballast she did not go to the bottom, as it is set down in poetry and prose that she should do when she fills with water. All the Topovers of the present party had been educated in the manly sports of the locality, and they could all swim. The disaster was not, therefore, a very appalling catastrophe. But they were not required to swim any great distance, and the useful art they had acquired was of more service in enabling them to retain their self-possession than for the purpose of reaching the shore.

The clumsy craft went out from under them, for it was no longer able to hold them up. As she rolled over, she filled with water to the gunwales, and emptied her living freight into the lake. But the event occurred not ten feet from the Goldwing's moorings; and while one half of the crew swam to the sloop, the other half clung to the wreck. Among the latter was Captain Topover, who possibly believed that the master should be the last to leave the ill-fated bark.

Those in the forward part of the Thunderer had gone to the yacht, as they were the nearest to it; while those in the stern did not "give up the ship,"—not just then, though they did so a few moments later when they discovered that the wreck was floating towards the outlet. Ash Burton was the first to take this step, and the other two immediately followed him. There was plenty of room on board of the Goldwing for a dozen, and the shipwrecked party were not crowded.

"That's the end of the Thunderer!" exclaimed Sam Spottwood, as he shook the water from his garments, and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible. "It is lucky that she left us to shift for ourselves just here, instead of out in the middle of Lake Champlain."

"Can't we save her?" asked Tom Topover, who had been reduced by the disaster to the level of his companions.

"She isn't worth saving," replied Sam contemptuously. "She can never be made to stay on the top of the water, and I wouldn't give two cents for a boat that wants to burrow in the mud at the bottom."

"I don't think the Thunderer was a success," added Ash Burton, as he wrung out the sack coat he wore. "I shall not go into the shipbuilding business at present."

"But she was a good boat, and worked very well," insisted the late captain of the craft. "She sailed very well when she got the hang of it."

"Or when her skipper got the hang of it," suggested Ash.

Tom took no notice of this bit of sarcasm, and perhaps did not understand it. All the party proceeded to do what they could to get the burden of water out of their clothes. But it was a warm day in August, and they were not likely to suffer from their involuntary bath. The hot sun was rapidly restoring the garments to their former condition; and the rough crowd made light of the affair, for they were in the water half the time during the long vacation.

"We have lost our sail," said Sam Spottwood, who had no interest in the craft which was now half-way to the outlet of Beechwater.

"That's so, and we have lost all the work we put into that craft. However, I did not expect much of such a tub, and I am not much disappointed in the result of the first cruise. But here we are, and here we are likely to remain until some one from the school comes and takes us off."

"You will have to wait a long while if you expect to be taken off," added Sam; "for all the people belonging to the place went off this morning in the Sylph, and they won't be back till night."

"It isn't ten o'clock in the forenoon yet, and they will not be back till dark, for they take their suppers on board," said Ash Burton, shrugging his shoulders at the prospect. "We shall get no dinner, and no supper, and it looks like a starving time ahead."

"You can bet I don't stay here without any dinner and without any supper," interposed Tom Topover. "If I don't get my dinner to home to-day, it will be because I get it somewhere else."

"I don't see how you are going to manage it. Do you mean to swim ashore?" asked Ash.

"I could do that if I wanted to, and so could the rest on us; but there is a better way," replied Tom, with a significant grin.

"A better way? What is it?" asked Sam.

"We ain't in the water, be we?" asked the late captain, with an expressive look at his companions, as though he desired to take the measure of them for a new enterprise.

"We be not," answered Ash, who had taken the job of correcting the leader's English, and had succeeded to a considerable extent. "We are not in the water: on the contrary, we are on board of the able and swift-sailing Goldwing; and we should be driven from her like cows from the corn if there were any of the officers of the school at home."

"Just so, but they are not at home. Most likely they are up to Whitehall or some other place at that end of the lake. Do you think I am going to stay here all day without any dinner and supper, when we might just as well use this boat as leave her alone?" demanded Tom Topover earnestly.

"It will be the safest way to let her alone," replied Ash, shaking his head. "You came very near being doomed to look through the bars of a gridiron for the next three or six months, over on the other side of the lake; and it will be well for you to keep a sharp lookout to windward, Tom."

"That was because I licked Paul Bristol," added Tom, with a grin.

"Or because you got licked by him," suggested Ash. "According to all accounts, you got the worst of it."

"I can lick Paul Bristol or Dory Dornwood out of their boots, every time," bragged Tom, who was never able to remember his defeats in the past; and both of the worthies mentioned had been too much for him. "But that ain't any thing to do with us now."

"If you should take this boat, and sail her away from her moorings, what should you call the act?" asked Ash, pinning his leader down to a point.

"I should call it taking the boat."

"Captain Gildrock would call it stealing her; and the court on this side of the lake might send you to the house of correction, or some such place, for a year or two," continued Ash Burton, carrying the point to its issue.

"We didn't come out here to steal her," protested Tom. "The captain would say we had no right to come on board of her; but you was the first one to get on board of her."

"I don't think the principal would find any fault with us for coming on board of her, after we were wrecked in the Thunderer," answered Ash.

"Of course he couldn't. That's one thing. The next is, shall we leave in the boat, or stay on board of her? We might as well drown as starve to death," argued Tom.

The high-school boy scratched his head, for there seemed to be some force in the late captain's argument. He was opposed to going without his dinner and supper, and he did not believe that a man as reasonable as Captain Gildrock would ask such a sacrifice of him. It occurred to him, that the gardener of the estate, or some of the stable-men, might be at home, and might be called to their assistance, if they shouted persistently for help. He proposed this to Tom, but it was received with a sneer.

"The boats are locked up in the new boat-house, and the gardener don't keep the keys," replied Tom. "You might as well holler for the captain himself, at Whitehall, as to try to find any one on the place when he is away."

"It couldn't do any great harm if we should sail the Goldwing up to the wharf," said Ash, as much to himself as to his companions. He did not like the idea of taking the boat, for Captain Gildrock was a Tartar to deal with in such matters.

"Of course it won't!" exclaimed Tom. "We can't do any other way. We should be fools to stay here and starve to death, within a quarter of a mile of the land."

Tom had made up his mind some time before, and had looked the boat over to ascertain whether or not she was available. During the summer the Goldwing had been supplied with a horizontal wheel, and the tiller could not be locked up in the cabin. But even if it had been, the cabin-doors were not locked as usual, for the reason that one of the crew had dropped the key overboard, and another had not been fitted. Tom found that there was nothing to prevent his party from getting the sloop under way.

Ash Burton and Sam Spottwood had always been law-abiding young men, as most of the others on board were not. If the proposition had been made on shore, to go off and take the Goldwing for a sail, in the absence of the owner, they would not have consented to take part in such an affair. But they had been put on her deck almost in spite of themselves; they had saved themselves from possible drowning by getting on board of her, for they did not believe they could swim to the shore.

Tom Topover's argument had its influence upon them; and they finally consented to assist in taking the boat, for the purpose of reaching the shore. The moorings were cast off, and the mainsail hoisted rather by tacit consent than by actual agreement. Ash assisted in the work, or it might never have been done, for the want of knowledge how to do it on the part of the others.

"Who is to be captain of this craft?" asked Ash, when the matter came to his mind.

"I am, of course," replied Tom confidently.

"All right," added Ash, who had thought he might not feel confident to handle the sloop. "I will obey orders, and do just what you tell me."

Tom went to the wheel. He had not noticed it particularly before, and he had no more idea of its use than he had of handling a quadrant or a log-line.

"What's this thing? and where is the tiller?" asked Tom, as he gave the wheel a twirl.

Ash Burton, who was the only one who was competent to answer the question, made no reply. The boat had been got under way in the most unseamanlike manner, and she was now drifting towards the outlet. There was wind enough to make the sail bang about above the heads of the party, for it had not been trimmed to any course. Tom studied the working of the wheel for a time, for he had come to the conclusion that it was to be used instead of a tiller. He turned it as far as he could, one way, and then looked over the stern, to note the position of the rudder. Then he reversed the wheel, and looked again. He had solved the mystery, and partially got the hang of the thing.

The wind was west; and Tom pulled away at the main sheet, until, guided by his experience in the Thunderer, he filled the sail. The sloop started off at a speed that startled the skipper. She heeled over, and frightened some of the party, who were not used to the movements of a sailboat. By feeling his way, the skipper had brought the sloop on the starboard tack, headed for the outlet. The direction was not Tom's choice; but, trimmed as she was, she would not go any other way.

Ash Burton wanted to protest against being carried away from the wharf, but he would not interfere with the skipper.