“I can’t agree with you,” Dick answered quietly.  “It takes danger, and the ability to meet it, to form a boy’s character into a man’s.”

“Then you believe in being foolhardy, as a matter of training?” asked Laura, with a swift flash of her eyes.

“By no means,” Prescott rejoined.  “Foolhardy means just what the word implies, and only a fool will be foolhardy.  If we had been trying to upset the canoe, as a matter of sport, that would have been the work of young fools.”

It was not difficult to locate the spot where the canoe had gone down.  The river’s current was not swift, and the paddles now floated not very far below the spot where the cherished craft of Dick & Co. had gone down.

“Do you want the services of some expert divers, Mr. Driggs?” asked Dave, turning from a brief chat with Belle Meade.

“Not you boys,” retorted the boat builder.  “You youngsters have been fooling enough with the river bottom for one day.”

“Then how do you expect to get hold of the canoe, sir?” asked Tom Reade.

“We’ll grapple with tackle,” replied Driggs, going toward an equipment box that stood on the forward end of the scow.  “We’ll use the same kind of tackle that we’ve sometimes dragged the bottom with when looking for drowned people.”

Laura Bentley slivered slightly at his words.  Driggs’ keen eyes noted the fact, and thereafter he was careful not to mention drowned people in her hearing.

The tackle was soon rigged.  Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, who possessed the keenest interest in things mechanical, aided the boat builder under his direction.

Back and forth over the spot the scow moved, while the grapples were frequently shifted and recast.

“Stop the engine,” called Driggs.  “We’ve hooked into something!”

Laura turned somewhat pale for a moment; Belle, too, looked uneasy.  The same thought had crossed both girls’ minds.  What if the tackle had caught the body of some drowned man?

“We’ll shift about here a bit,” Driggs proposed, nodding to the engineer to stand by ready to stop or start the engine on quick signal.

Before long the grappling hook of another line was caught;

“The two lines are about twelve feet apart,” Driggs announced.  “My idea is that we’ve caught onto two cross braces of the canoe.  If so we’ll have it up in a jiffy.”

Both lines were now made fast to the derrick, in such a way that there would be an even haul on both lines.  Belting was now connected between the engine and a windlass.

“Haul away, very slowly,” Driggs ordered.

Up came the lines, an inch at a time.  Belle and Laura could not resist the temptation to go to the edge of the scow and peer over.

“I see something coming up,” cried Belle at last.

“It’s the canoe,” said Tom Reade, trying to speak carelessly, though there was a ring of exultation in his voice.