No accident befell Maurice, and he was able to land safely; after which he drew his small craft well up on the beach, before climbing the abrupt bank just beyond, by means of protruding roots of trees.

Thad listened until he heard the steady blows of the ax; and then he went back to some work he had been doing at the time.

It might have been about half an hour later that he suddenly caught what seemed to be an angry bark from the shore; and as the sound appeared to come directly from that quarter where he remembered Maurice had been at work, he immediately became quite concerned.

The sound came again almost immediately, and seemed even more savage than before.  Following it he caught the voice of his pard raised in anger.

“Get out, you rascal!  Hi! there, what d’ye mean jumping at me like that!  Keep off, or I’ll give you a dig with the ax.  D’ye hear, you big fool?”

Apparently Maurice was in some sort of trouble, and as near as the boy on the shanty-boat could understand he had been attacked by some roving animal that had taken a fancy to try and assault the strange woodchopper.

Thad jumped into the cabin and came out with the little Marlin in his hands; but then he realized how utterly impotent he was to give his beleaguered chum a helping hand just then.

The boiling water lay between him and that shore for a distance of perhaps thirty feet or more; nor was it possible for even his sanguine spirit to bridge it.

True, there was the dinghy on the little beach, and the cable attached to its stern ran all the way to the larger boat, so that it was possible for him to tug away, and eventually bring it alongside.

Should he try it?

The sounds had grown even more furious, as though Maurice and the unseen dog might be engaged in something resembling a regular circus.

Suppose he pulled the dinghy away from the shore, and just then his chum appeared, eager to throw himself into it, his disappointment would be terrible.

But all the same Thad could not stand there helpless and listen to that terrible racket going on.

Why, for all he knew, poor old Maurice might be in hard luck, with the teeth of a savage hound threatening his very life.

And so Thad made up his mind in a hurry, for he was not the one to hesitate when an emergency called for speedy action.

He had laid the Marlin down on the deck, and applied both hands to the task of getting the small boat across that intervening stretch of water as quickly as human means could accomplish the job.

If anything was needed to urge him on to unusual haste it might have easily been found in the continual confusion of shouts, laughter, barks, and general confusion existing ashore.

Swiftly the tender of the shanty-boat came spinning through the water, until in a short time it bumped against the side.

Thad waited only long enough to deposit his precious gun in the bottom, and then crawling over the side himself, he seized upon the paddle, and dipped deeply.