"And you remember what Clay said about having discovered the boat as we came in? Why, he told us right where it is."

"Yes, he said he saw it on the bottom," Jule interrupted.

"Now, I have an idea," Captain Joe smiled, winking at the two boys, "that it would be all right for us to lift the launch while Clay is away. What do you say to that?"

"Great idea!" shouted Case.

"Then let's get at it," Jule suggested.

"The first thing to do," Captain Joe said, "is to find out exactly where the _Cartier_ lies."

"Aw, I know that," Jule said, "Clay told me about that. It's right over there in about fifteen feet of water just below that submerged bar."

"Fifteen feet with or without the tide?" asked Captain Joe.

"Fifteen feet with the tide out," was the reply, "and the tide is out now, so we'd better be getting busy."

They swung the _Rambler_ over to the north side of the bar and anch.o.r.ed. From this new position, across the white surface of the bottom, they could see the trunk cabin of the _Cartier_ sitting squarely up in the water. The boat had evidently dropped straight down when scuttled, and she now lay on an almost even keel with her nose pointing upstream.

"Now, I tell you, boys," Captain Joe observed, "one of you must go down and attach a line to her forward towing bitts. I'd go down myself, understand, only I'm so big and clumsy that I might displace too much water in the stream. Who'll go?"

"I'm the champion diver of the South Branch," Jule cried, "and I'll go down and have that line fast in about a second."

"It's a long dive," warned Captain Joe.

"I've stood on my head in deeper water than that," said the boy.

Case got out the rowboat and Jule was taken over to the place from which he was to dive. The end of the cable was pa.s.sed to him and he dropped down. In a moment, he came climbing up the rope like a young monkey, shaking water over Case as he tumbled into the boat.

"Now get a-going," he said, "and we'll have this boat out of the mud before Clay and Alex return. I wonder what we'll find on board of her."

"You don't expect to find a lost channel, do you? Or a casket of family jewels?" asked Case, with a wink.

"I was thinking," Jule replied, "that we might find something to eat."

The boys rowed back to the _Rambler_, clambered on board, and the motor boat was started forward, one end of the cable attached to her after deck cleats. She pulled steadily for a moment under full power, but the launch refused to move. She was evidently deeply imbedded in the bottom.

"I reckon we'll have to go down and push," Case grinned.

"You just wait, boys, and I'll try it once more," Captain Joe said.

The second attempt was successful, and the _Cartier_ was drawn slowly, carefully, to the bar. When she left her original position on the bottom of the river, she listed to one side and so came in almost on her beam ends.

"I guess we've spilled some of her crockery," Jule laughed as the boat showed one side of her hull. "Fontenelle may kick on our wearing out his furniture."

"Oh, he'll be glad enough to get his boat back," Captain Joe remarked.

"Now, we'll see if we can pump her out."

The launch now lay tipping only slightly on the bar, her keel having cut into the soft sand, with her gunwales two or three inches above the surface of the river. The cabin stood well out of the river, of course, but the great body of water in the c.o.c.kpit and over the cabin floor held her down.

"Now we'll see if we can't pump her out," Captain Joe said. "I don't understand what sent her to the bottom. She looks to be as fit as a fiddle."

"Perhaps we can tell that when we get the water out of her," Case suggested. "There may be a big hole in her bottom."

The _Rambler's_ pump was now put in operation, but the interior of the launch remained full of water. The river rushed in as fast as the pumps removed it, so the craft did not rise to the surface.

"You'll have to get your feet wet again, Jule," Case said. "Just drop over into the c.o.c.kpit and see if you can see any hole in the bottom."

Jule did as requested, floundering and splashing about in the water as though he considered the enterprise only a bit of fun.

"Nothing doing here!" he shouted back. "There's no hole in the bottom that I can see. There may be one under the double floor in the cabin but I don't believe it."

"Look for the sea-c.o.c.k," cried Captain Joe, leaning over the gunwale of the _Rambler_. "It may have been opened. It ought to be right there in the c.o.c.kpit close to the wall of the cabin."

Jule felt around in the water for a time, ducked his head under in order to get closer to the bottom now and then and finally raised his dripping face with a shout.

"I've found it!" he cried. "The sea-c.o.c.k was wide open and that's what sunk the launch."

"Wonder Fontenelle wouldn't have investigated," said Case.

"The launch was probably sunk in the night," Captain Joe suggested, "when the members of the party were away. When they returned to the boat, of course, they had no grappling apparatus or anything to help raise her, and so they just went away and left her in the mud."

"That's probably it," Case said, turning on the pump.

"Hold on," Jule cried. "You wait till I get something to plug this sea-c.o.c.k with. I can't turn the valve. It's rusty."

The boy was given a basket of waste which had been used in cleaning the motors, and in a short time the sea-c.o.c.k was securely plugged.

Then the pumps were set in motion again and in a very short time the _Cartier_ was virtually free of water.

"That's a mighty handsome boat," Captain Joe observed as the launch lay on the surface. "If I had her down on the South Branch, I could have the time of my life every day in the week."

The boys worked over the boat for some time drying off the woodwork and fixing the valve of the sea-c.o.c.k so it would close.

"Of course, she won't run now," Captain Joe explained, "because the batteries and the magneto are soaked with water. We can transfer new apparatus from the _Rambler_ and, as she has plenty of gasoline, she will go like a duck on a mill-pond."

"I guess Clay will think we have been going some to get that boat off the bottom," laughed Case.

Captain Joe looked at his watch, his face clouding as he did so.

"Why, look here," he said. "We've been a long time on this job. It is after one o'clock."

"We might have known that by the tide coming in," Case said.

"I wasn't thinking about the water," the captain laughed. "I was thinking about Clay and Alex. Now, where do you suppose those two scamps are? They ought to have been here long ago."

"Perhaps they've found the lost channel!" Jule put in.

"It is more likely they found a nest of outlaws they couldn't get away from," was Case's idea of the situation. "I think we ought to do something about it right now," he added.