At the moment when Clay's situation seemed most hopeless—and while his horrified companions were looking on with the silence of despair—Nugget leaned forward in his canoe, opened the hatch, and drew out a big ball of cord.

"Ned! Ned!" he shouted eagerly, "can you do anything with this outline? I forgot I had it."

Ned's face flushed with joy, and paddling alongside of Nugget he snatched the cord.

"Follow me to the shore," he cried, "and you too, Randy."

An instant later the three lads were standing on the gravel beach, separated from the whirlpool by no less than sixty or seventy feet.

Ned waved his hand to Clay, and shouted hoarsely: "Fight hard, old fellow! We'll save you in a minute."

Then turning quickly to his companions he demanded: "How long is this line?"

"One hundred and forty feet," answered Nugget. "The man I bought it from, said so."

Ned tied the end of it to a ring in the stern of the Pioneer, and ran down the beach, unrolling the ball as he went. Sixty feet away he stopped and cut the cord, then he hurried back with the remainder in his hand. He tied a short stick to the end of the ball, and throwing both into his canoe scrambled after them.

"Now you fellows keep tight hold of that," he directed, pointing to the cord that lay outstretched on the beach. "Pay it out as I go, and when I give the word pull with all your might."

Randy and Nugget began to understand now, and they allowed the line to trail through their fingers as Ned paddled furiously away, heading for a point a little above the whirlpool.

It was a critical and intensely exciting moment. Clay had divined what Ned intended to do, and with this gleam of hope to animate him, he was fighting desperately to keep away from the gurgling hollow which was slowly sucking him into its embrace.

There was scant time to spare when Ned ceased paddling a few feet above and to the right of the whirlpool, and allowed the canoe to drift down stream broadside. But he was wonderfully cool headed and self-possessed, as, with deft fingers he unwrapped the ball of cord and coiled it between his knees. Then he twisted one end about his left hand, and with the right seized the short, heavy stick.

He was now directly opposite Clay, and measuring the distance with a quick eye, he flung the stick straight out. It rose in the air, dragging the cord gracefully after it, and fell across the combing of Clay's canoe.

Ned uttered a sigh of relief, and Randy and Nugget cheered wildly from the shore.

But the danger was not over yet, though Clay had instantly seized the line. The canoe would upset at once if an attempt were made to drag it broadside out of the whirlpool.

Clay comprehended this, and he was quick witted enough to solve the problem. Though his canoe was now verging on the trough of the whirlpool, he calmly tied the line around one blade of his paddle and pressed this with all his might against the big screw eye that was set in the bow of the canoe.

"All right," he shouted hoarsely.

Ned turned and waved his hand to Randy and Nugget. They understood the signal, and instantly began to haul on the line.

The Pioneer moved slowly toward shore, and the next instant the strain reached Clay. It was concentrated in the right place, too, and after a couple of refractory tugs, as though the whirlpool was loath to surrender its victim, the Neptune headed about and slowly followed the Pioneer.

This was, if possible, a more exciting moment than any that had preceded it. So much depended on the two lines. If either broke disaster would follow.

But the cords did their duty nobly, and soon Clay was beyond the swirling circles. A few seconds later the Pioneer touched shore, and then three willing pairs of hands dragged the Neptune in so forcibly that a great wave rolled before the bow.

The boys had to help Clay out and prop him against a tree; and for nearly five minutes he sat there so white and helpless that they feared he would faint. A drink of water seemed to revive him some, and finally the color came back to his cheeks.

"I'm all right now," he said, as he got up and walked a few steps. "For a little while I felt like keeling over, and no wonder, after what I went through out there."

"It was a close call," asserted Ned. "Nugget didn't remember about that line a minute too soon. The credit of your rescue belongs to him."

"No it doesn't," said Nugget bashfully. "You did the work."

Clay looked from one to the other, and then held out his hand to Nugget.

"It was your outline and your suggestion," he said in a low voice. "You saved my life. Will you forgive me, old fellow? I put that snake in your canoe this morning, and am awfully sorry I did it."

Nugget hesitated an instant. Then he blushingly accepted the proffered hand and said:

"We'll let the matter drop, Clay. I know you won't do anything like that again."

"No, I won't," replied Clay earnestly. "I'm done with practical jokes. It was only a garter snake, though I caught it with a forked stick."

Ned and Randy had been at first inclined to pitch into Clay, but seeing that he was sincerely repentant they wisely concluded to ignore his fault, hoping that the lesson would really prove beneficial, and cure him of the fondness for playing tricks.

After a light lunch the Jolly Rovers started off again. They were anxious to get as far as possible from the whirlpool. During the early part of the afternoon they paddled and drifted by turns, for Clay was still a little weak from his experience.

Between three and four o'clock a bend of the creek brought into view an old wooden bridge. The piers were mossy and crumbling to ruins, and the roof and sides had been guiltless of paint for many a long year.

Just below the bridge the Creek widened to a kind of pool. At the foot of a ledge of rocks on the left shore sat three men holding long fishing poles. Their attention seemed to be given to a fourth man, who was sitting in a boat near by, talking earnestly, and pointing from time to time out on the creek.

A spring was visible a little above the fishermen, and as the boys happened to be thirsty they paddled over to it.

The canoes immediately became objects of interest, and a friendly conversation was started.

The man in the boat stepped out, and picked up Randy's gun.

"That's a purty nice weapon," he observed in a mournful voice. "It ain't unlike the one I lost, only mine was longer, and a leetle bit lighter. It was a muzzle loader, though, and this is one of them new fangled kind."

"How did you lose yours?" inquired Randy.

"It sunk out there," replied the man, pointing toward mid-channel. "I was driftin' along when I seen a muskrat in the reeds on t'other shore. I stood up to reach the gun, an' just as I got holt of it my foot slipped on a wet board, an' down I come. The weapon went overboard, an' that was the end of it. It riles me bad, 'cause that gun belonged to my old daddy."

"When did this happen?" asked Randy.

"'Bout half an hour ago; anyway not much mor'n that."

"But the gun surely isn't lost for good. Why don't you dive after it?"

The man thrust his hands into his pockets and stared blankly at Randy. The three fishermen smiled and nudged each other.

"Why don't you dive after it?" repeated Randy. "If you can tell me the exact location I'll get it for you."

"You will, will you?" exclaimed the man impressively. "Waal, I reckon you'd have a stiff contract. Did you fellows never hear of Rudy's Hole? Thar it lies right in front of you, and there ain't no bottom to it."

"Hold on, Mose Hocker," exclaimed one of the fishermen. "There must be bottom somewheres, of course, but it's mighty far down."

The boys looked at one another incredulously and smiled. The idea of a bottomless hole in the Conodoguinet was ridiculous.

At that moment an old man with bent back and white hair hobbled down the path from the road above, leaning heavily on his cane, which was his constant companion.

"Good afternoon, Daddy Perkiss," exclaimed Mose Hocker. "I'm glad you come along. I lost my gun out in the Hole a while ago, and this chap here offers to dive arter it. You've lived around these parts nigh onto eighty years. Tell him how fur down he'll have to go to reach that weapon."

"Ho! Ho!" cackled Daddy Perkiss, as he tremblingly sat down on a drift log, "the lad wants to dive in Rudy's Hole, does he? Well, let him try, let him try."

The old man was silent for a moment, and his bleary eyes had a far away expression as though they were looking into the dim past.

"It be sixty years since Jonas Rudy were drowned out here," he mumbled in a shrill voice, "an they ain't found the body to this day. I were away at the time, drivin' a teamster's wagon to Pittsburg, but I mind hearin' the story when I come home. Many a time I've heard tell how they tried to find bottom the next spring after Jonas was drowned.

"Mike Berry, the blacksmith over at Four Corners, brought his anvil, an' the men made the women folks give up their clotheslines. Then they went out on the hole in the old ferryboat, and let down the anvil. There was two hundred feet of line in all, an' when half of it were out the men lost their grip. The rest went like greased lightnin', an' the end got coiled around Mike Berry's yaller dog, an' took it along. The poor beast never came up again."

Daddy Perkiss paused for sheer want of breath, and looked around to note the effect of his story.

"That yarn was started years ago," whispered Mose Hocker, coming close up to the boys, "an' Daddy has told it so many times that he believes every word. I reckon the most of it's true though. It would take more'n one clothesline to reach bottom out here."

"But has the place never been sounded?" asked Ned. "Have you never tried it yourself?"

Mose Hocker shook his head vigorously. "What would be the use?" he replied. "Nobody doubts it. Why, Rudy's Hole is known an' dreaded for miles around."

Evidently regarding this argument as a clincher he turned aside, and began to talk to Daddy Perkiss.

About this time Randy was doing a good deal of thinking. He had listened with incredulous interest to the old man's narrative, and knowing how prone country folk are to accept any fanciful story—especially a long standing tradition—without ever attempting to verify it, the conviction had forced itself upon his mind that Rudy's Hole was a myth—in other words that its depth was nothing extraordinary.

Randy was a good swimmer, but a far better diver. He was long winded, and his staying qualities under water had always been a source of admiration and envy to his companions.

It now occurred to him, with irresistible fascination, what a fine thing it would be to recover Mose Hooker's gun, and show these people what a delusion they had been laboring under all their lives.

It took Randy but a short time to make up his mind, and walking over to Mose Hocker, he asked abruptly: "Could you tell me just where your gun fell in?"

"I reckon I could if there was any need of it," was the drawling reply. "I happened to notice my bearings at the time. I was straight down from that rock out there, and straight out from the big button wood tree on yonder shore—right over the deepest part of the Hole."

"All right!" said Randy quietly. "Now if you will lend me your boat for about ten minutes I think I can restore you your gun."