liest thing one can imagine. He had worked hard and, being a
man addicted to tobacco, he felt the need of a smoke.

He pulled out his pipe, filled it, unnoticed by Mr. Lavine, who was
still trying to swab out the last of the bilge and gasoline, and
scratched a match. He was directly in front of the hood of the boat when
he did it. The next moment there was a flash, a roar, and the man was
flung the length of the boat, against Mr. Lavine in the stern, and the
two almost went overboard.

The foolish smoker lost his mustache, eyebrows, and lashes, and a lot of
his front hair. He was scorched quite severely, too; but the peril which
menaced them with the front of the boat in flames drove the thought of
his burns from the fellow's mind.

"And I can't swim a stroke, boss!" he cried.

"You have nothing on me there," declared Mr. Lavine. "I have never been
able to master more than the first few motions in the art of swimming."

But the flames were springing higher and they had nothing with which to
throw water on the fire. The man had not even a bailing tin in his
moribund old craft. Mr. Lavine had been using a swab and was covered
with grease and dirty water.

This became a small thing, however--and that within a very few minutes.
The boat was doomed and both knew it.

Mr. Lavine tried to tear up more of the grating under foot so as to make
something that would float and upon which they might bear themselves up
in the water. But the boards were too thin.

Then he tried to unship the rudder (the singed boatman was no use at all
in this emergency) and so make use of that as a float. But the bolts
were rusted and the boat had begun to swing around so that the fire blew
right into the stern.

They both had to leap overboard.

It was a serious situation indeed. By Mr. Lavine's advice they paddled
toward the bow, one on either side of the boat, for the flames were
rushing aft.

The bow was a mere shell, however. The flames had already almost
consumed it, and soon the fire fairly ate through the bows at the water
level. The water rushed in and so sank the boat by the head.

Not that the boat went straight down. The stern rose in the water and
the two men, in their desperate strait, gazed at the flames above their
heads.

Had it been night the fire would have been like a great torch in the
middle of the lake--and it would have brought help from all directions.
As it was, the black smoke first thrown off, and then the s