"The very thing!" he exclaimed.

"While it's aground here the raft doesn't need a cable any more than I need a check-rein, and I told father so.

He said there wasn't any harm in taking a precaution, and that the water might rise unexpectedly.

As if there was a chance of it! There hasn't been any rain for two months, and isn't likely to be any for another yet to come." While these thoughts were spinning through the boy's brain, he was casting loose the cable at both ends and stowing it in his own little dugout that was moored to the outer side of the raft.

Then with strong deep strokes he paddled swiftly upstream towards the broken boom.
After fifteen minutes of hard work he had secured one end of the cable to that part of the boom resting against the snag, carried the other to and around a tree on the bank, back again to the boom, and then to the inshore end of the broken chain.