apt to get our guns wet, and that might keep us
from using the same, when they were badly needed," Jack suggested. "So
it seems as though we'll have to give up the idea of leaving the fort by
the water door."

This started them to canvassing the whole situation over again, and
several ingenious schemes were proposed. Unfortunately, on entering
deeper into the same, they showed weakness in one particular or another,
so that all of them had to be cast aside.

What made it doubly irritating was the knowledge that if they waited
until the dawn came, their position would be doubly dangerous, since
they might not even show themselves along the side of the wreck, without
inviting a shot. As to escaping, it was not to be thought of while the
sun remained above the horizon.

"We've got to do something to-night, that's flat!" urged Teddy, possibly
in the hope that Ned might have a plan of his own, which he was holding
back, just to ascertain what his chums could do along those lines.

"I've got a hunch that they're nearly ready to give us another whirl,"
Jimmy was remarking, as he leaned over the rail of the vessel, as though
to see better.

"What makes you say that?" questioned Jack.

"There's a suspicious movement below that makes me believe some of the
bog-trotters are creeping along close beside the boat. I think they must
have come out of the water, where it slaps up against the wreck. Right
down underneath us they are, Ned. If I had a kettle of scaldin' water, I
could start the biggest yelping chorus ye ever heard right now."

A few sharp words from Ned put them all on the alert. Each one had a
station assigned to him, which he was expected to hold, in case of a
renewal of hostilities; while Jimmy might bemoan the fact that he could
not have a bucket of boiling water with which to startle the intended
boarders, he evidently did not intend to let that deficiency keep him
from doing his duty. Crouching there at a point where he could fire
through the breach in the stern of the wreck, he only waited for the
word to be given, when he evidently meant to start some others among the
enemy to limping on one leg.

"Gee!" Jack heard him saying softly to himself, with a chuckle,
"wouldn't it be a funny thing now, if we went and crippled the whole
shooting match, by tapping every one in the left leg. Think of how
they'd go hobbling around here, like a bunch of old pensioners comin'
after their money. Watch my smoke, now, and s