On the whole the _Adventurer_ had so far come off easily. Her planks had
been strained in several places, but there were no breaks. Steve,
hanging over the stern, tried to get sight of the propeller but failed,
as the sand had settled about it. Joe, wading out into the water, had
better success when he investigated. He came up, dripping, with the
welcome announcement that the blades were intact and that, so far as he
could ascertain by feeling, the shaft was not bent. But things looked
pretty dismal below-decks. The forward cabin was awash, as was the
engine-well, and the after stateroom was knee-deep. They gathered on the
bridge deck and held council.
"We can plug her seams, all right," said Steve, "and by keeping a pump
going get to port, _if_ we can only get her off the beach. But I can't,
for the life of me, see how we're going to do that. Her bow's settled a
foot deep in sand and it's piled up along this side of her. Even her
propeller's buried!"
"Not very much," said Joe. "If we start her she'll kick it away in a
minute."
"But there isn't any use starting her," said Steve thoughtfully, "unless
she's afloat a good deal more than she was this morning. If only we had
something to fix a line to astern we might pull her off with the
windlass.
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