upsetting? Does she make a regular
thing of it?" asked Thad Glovering.

"I have heard of her doing it twice before; though I believe she never
drowned any one but her owner," replied Dory candidly and seriously.
"But I don't want any fellow to sail in her that don't want to."

"We can stand it as well as you can, Dory," added Corny Minkfield. "I
suppose she would drown you as easily as she would any of the rest of
us."

"There is nothing to make any of us stand it if we don't want to,"
continued Dory. "I have told you the worst of it, and there isn't any
law to make any of you sail in the Goldwing."

"But we want to sail in her; and this is the Goldwing Club now. But we
don't want to be drowned," said Thad. "I think my uncle would like to
get rid of me, but I don't believe he would want to have me drowned."

"I don't want to be drowned any more than you do, and I know my mother
wouldn't want any such thing to happen to me. Of course I wouldn't go
out in the Goldwing if I thought she was going to spill me into the
lake," added Dory. "I have told you the worst of it, and now you can go
ashore at Plattsburgh if you want to."

"I am willing to take my chances if you are, Dory," replied Thad with
some hesitation. "It is blowing a young hurricane to-day, and you said
you should not go till the weather was fit."

"I am not going to drown myself or you either, if I can help it,
fellows," Dory proceeded. "I heard about the Goldwing the last time I
was up here. I asked all about the drowning of the man that owned her,
and a boatman who saw the whole of it told me all about it."

"How long ago was it that the man was drowned?" asked Nat Long.

"It was about three weeks ago. The boat lay on the bottom a week before
they raised her," replied Dory.

"Was it blowing hard when he was drowned?" inquired Corny.

"No: it was just a good sailing-breeze. I think I know what the matter
was with the boat. I believe I can make her all right, if I have not
already done it; for I have been at work on her this morning."

"What was the trouble with her?" asked Thad, who considered the skipper
competent to put any thing to rights about a boat.

"She was ballasted so that she carried a lee helm," answered Dory, as
solemnly as though he settled the fate of a nation by his words.

"Carried a lee helm!" exclaimed Dick Short. "Is that what the matter
was?"

"Carried a lee helm!" repeated Thad. "That was bad!"

"Carried a lee helm! If