"Now you've done it, Dutchy; you're
a fine skipper, you are! How do you expect to get us back to shore again?"
The steering oar was left behind us on the ice, and there we were drifting
on the open water, with no rudder and no oar to bring us back.
The Scooter Scow.
[Illustration: Fig. 191. Scow with Runners nailed on.]
The only thing we could do was to wait until the wind or current carried
us to the ice or land. In the meantime Dutchy, who had suddenly sobered
down when we took our water plunge, explained how he had rigged up the
scow to travel both on ice and on water. He called the rig a sled boat,
but the name by which such a rig is now known is a "scooter." It was
Dutchy's idea primarily, but Reddy had engineered the work. Along the
bottom of the scow two strips of hickory had been nailed to serve as
runners. The hickory strips had been bent up at the forward end, as shown
in Fig. 191. Each runner was shod with a strip of brass, fastened on with
flathead screws, which were countersunk, so that the heads should not
project below the brass. This virtually made a sledge out of the old scow,
and didn't spoil it for use on the water.
A Sprit Sail.
[Illustration: Fig. 192.
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