"Hey, what you goin' to do, have a snack?" yelled Steve, who at that moment chanced to be a little way ahead of the others.

"Bandy-legs is sinking, and we've got to see what ails his boat!"

answered Max, making a speaking tube or a megaphone of his hands.

No doubt Steve, impatient to reach their destination, and make camp before dark, would be saying things not at all complimentary to the sufferer, as he retraced his course, in order to join them.

Meanwhile, when the canoes reached a pebbly stretch of sh.o.r.e, they were beached; and then Max set to work to ascertain what could have happened to the cedar boat to make it start sinking in such a mysterious way.

First the bundles were taken out, and they all observed that it was fortunate they had decided at the last minute to let Bandy-legs have one of the tents instead of the foodstuff he had been given in the beginning.

"Give me a hand here, fellows," remarked Max, "and we'll turn her over to let the water get out faster. I can see right now where the trouble lies, and it's right down in the bottom. There's a leak as sure as anything!"

"Then its good-by to my bally little canoe right in the start, I reckon," complained the owner, sadly. "I'm a Jonah, all right. All sorts of things keep happening to _me_. What does it look like, Max?" as the boat was finally turned completely over, so that the bottom was fully exposed.

Max uttered an exclamation that told of astonishment.

"Well, that is queer!" they heard him mutter, as he thrust a finger through the hole in the garboard streak of the boat.

"What strikes you as so funny, Max?" asked Steve, who had by now joined them.

"Look for yourself," replied the other, moving back.

Four heads were instantly bent over, as the boys took his advice.

"Must have been a round snag, all right," commented Steve; "because that's as pretty a circular hole as I ever saw."

"Tell you I never struck no snag!" declared the indignant Bandy-legs; "guess I'd 'a' felt it, wouldn't I, Max?"

"Listen, fellows," said the one appealed to, in a tone that caused the others to stop their wrangling, and pay attention; "as Bandy-legs says, he didn't run foul of any snag on the river since we left home. That hole was made by an auger, or a bit held in a brace. Some mean fellow had the nerve to lay this trap for our chum, in order to give us all the trouble he could."

"Shack Beggs!" shouted Steve, always quick to make up his mind.

"That was why he kept grinning like he did, when he watched us go off,"

observed Owen, in a disgusted way. "When do you suppose he could have found a chance to do such a dirty trick, Max?"

"Well, we don't know for a certainty whether it was Shack or one of his crowd," replied the other, shaking his head; "but whoever did it must have found some way to get into the boathouse after we left last night.

You remember, boys, we've got a ratchet brace there, and several bits.

One of them would just about fit this hole. But he must have been mighty careful to take away every little splinter, so as not to make us suspect there'd been any funny carryings-on."

"How d'ye suppose he fixed it, so as to keep the water out till just now?" asked the bewildered owner of the canoe.

For answer Max made a crawl underneath, and almost immediately came out again holding something in his hand, which he showed them. It was apparently a plug of wood, and must have come from the hole that had caused the sudden flooding of the cedar canoe.

"There, you can see what a neat little game he played!" Max exclaimed.

After he bored that round hole he made this plug and drove it in from above. Underneath he made sure that it was evened off so it wouldn't be seen unless any one examined the bottom of the canoe close. Then he had it fixed so when Bandy-legs got to moving about, as he always does, you know, any time he was liable to loosen the plug and the pressure of the water'd do the rest.

"Oh! what a wicked shame!" cried the owner of the wrecked canoe.

"H-h-he ought t' b-b-be hung f-f-for it!" exclaimed Toby, just as indignant as though it had been his own boat that was injured so wantonly.

"What can we do, Max, to fix her up?" asked Owen, quietly.

"Oh!" put the plug in again, and make sure that it will hold this time.

Later on, when we get back, we'll have to get the boat builder in Carson to put a new streak of cedar planking in, to take the place of this one."

"Sure you can fix it so there won't be any chance of my going down?"

asked the anxious owner.

"Easy enough. Just give me ten or fifteen minutes, and I'll answer for it," came the confident response, as Max immediately set to work.

"While this is going on the rest of us can rest," remarked Owen, dropping down on the ground.

"Here's the sandwiches I made this morning; might as well take a bite, now we've got to hang out here a spell," and Bandy-legs began pa.s.sing them around.

"Looks to me like we had reached the junction of the Big Sunflower and the Elder," observed Steve, as he munched away contentedly at his ham sandwich.

"Just what we have," Max spoke up, working away at his little job, and stopping occasionally to s.n.a.t.c.h a bite. "It lies right around that bend yonder. I remember it well, and how we made our first haul of the mussels there."

"Yes, and found a bully old pearl in the first lot," declared Steve, watching Bandy-legs poke around in the gra.s.s nearby; for the boy with the short legs was of an investigating turn, and liked nothing better than to search for things; "hey! what you think you'll find there, diamonds this time?"

"Oh! I just run across a lot of wriggling little snakes, about as long as lead pencils, and I'm seein' 'em twist and turn. It's just fun to watch the little beggars get mad."

"Huh!" grunted Steve, as he turned his attention to what Max was doing; "some fellers get fun out of mighty little things, sometimes."

A minute or so later they heard Bandy-legs laugh again.

"Say, let up with that silly play, and come in," called Steve, testily; "we're 'bout ready to load up again and go on."

"You'd die laughing to see her try to get a whack at me," called back Bandy-legs. "It's the mother of all them little snakes, I reckon. My!

but she's mad though; just coils up here, and jumps out at me every time I touch her with my stick!"

Max felt a shudder pa.s.s through his person as he looked at Owen. For suddenly he seemed to realize that the rattling sound, which he had of course thought was caused by a noisy locust on a nearby tree, was in fact the deadly warning that an enraged rattlesnake gives when striving to strike its fangs into an enemy!

CHAPTER III.

ON THE ISLAND WITH THE BAD NAME.

"Keep back, Bandy-legs; that's a rattlesnake!" shouted Max, and some of the others turned white with sudden alarm, as they also noted for the first time the incident buzzing sound from a point nearby.

Immediately every one started toward the spot where the foolish Bandy-legs was standing, holding a rather short stick in his hand, with which he had doubtless been tormenting the larger snake just as he had previously annoyed her young brood.

He was now seemingly turned into stone, although fortunately enough he had managed to spring back a pace upon hearing the dreadful words shouted by his chum.

"Get clubs, and make them as long as you can!" called out Owen. "Be careful how you let her have a chance to reach you when she springs out.