Some time in the middle of the night Joe Sharpe woke up from a dream
that he had fallen into the river, and could not get out. He thought
that he had caught hold of the supports of a bridge, and had drawn
himself partly out of the water, but that he had not strength enough
to drag his legs out, and that, on the contrary, he was slowly sinking
back. When he awoke he found that he was very cold, and that his
blanket felt particularly heavy. He put his hand down to move the
blanket, when, to his great surprise, he found that he was lying with
his legs in a pool of water.
Joe instantly shouted to the other boys, and told them to wake up,
for it was raining, and the tent was leaking. As each boy woke up he
found himself as wet as Joe, and at first all supposed that it was
raining heavily. They soon found, however, that no rain-drops were
pattering on the outside of the tent, and that the stars were shining
through the open flap. “There’s water in this tent,” said Tom, with
the air of having made a grand discovery. “If any of you fellows have
been throwing water on me, it was a mean trick,” said Jim. All at once
an idea struck Harry. “Boys,” he exclaimed, “it’s the tide! We’ve got
to get out of this place mighty quick, or the tide will wash the tent
away.”
The boys sprung up, and rushed out of the tent. They had gone to bed
at low-tide, and as the tide rose it had gradually invaded the tent.
The boat was still safe, but the water had surrounded it, and in a very
short time would be deep enough to float it. The tide was still rising,
and it was evident that no time should be lost if the tent was to be
saved.
Two of the boys hurriedly seized the blankets and other articles which
were in the tent, and carried them on to the higher ground; while the
other two pulled up the pins, and dragged the tent out of reach of the
water. Then they pulled the boat farther up the beach, and, having thus
made everything safe, had leisure to discover that they were miserably
cold, and that their clothes, from the waist down, were wet through.
Luckily, their spare clothing, which they had used for pillows, was
untouched by the water, so that they were able to put on dry shirts
and trousers. Their blankets, however, had been thoroughly soaked, and
it was too cold to think of sleeping without them. There was nothing
to be done but to build a fire, and sit around it until daylight. It
was by no means easy to collect firewood in the dark; and as soon as a
boy succeeded in getting an armful of driftwood, he usually stumbled
and fell down with it. There was not very much fun in this; but when
the fire finally blazed up, and its pleasant warmth conquered the cold
night air, the boys began to regain their spirits.
“I wonder what time it is?” said one.
Tom had a watch, but he had forgotten to wind it up for two or three
nights, and it had stopped at eight o’clock. The boys were quite sure,
however, that they could not have been asleep more than half an hour.
“It’s about one o’clock,” said Harry, presently.
“I don’t believe it’s more than nine,” said Joe.
“We must have gone into the tent about an hour after sunset,” continued
Harry, “and the sun sets between six and seven. It was low-tide then,
and it’s pretty near high-tide now; and since the tide runs up for
about six hours, it must be somewhere between twelve and one.”
“You’re right,” exclaimed Jim. “Look at the stars. That bright star
over there in the west was just rising when we went to bed.”
“You ought to say ‘turned in!’” said Joe. “Sailors never go to bed;
they always ‘turn in.’”
“Well, we can’t turn in any more to-night,” replied Tom. “What do you
say, boys? suppose we have breakfast--it’ll pass away the time, and we
can have another breakfast by-and-by.”
Now that the boys thought of it, they began to feel hungry, for they
had had a very light supper. Everybody felt that hot coffee would be
very nice; so they all went to work--made coffee, fried a piece of ham,
and, with a few slices of bread, made a capital breakfast. They wrung
out the wet blankets and clothes, and hung them up by the fire to dry.
Then they had to collect more firewood; and gradually the faint light
of the dawn became visible, before they really had time to find the
task of waiting for daylight tiresome.
They decided that it would not do to start with wet blankets, since
they could not dry them in the boat. They therefore continued to keep
up a brisk fire, and to watch the blankets closely, in order to see
that they did not get scorched. After a time the sun came out bright
and hot, and took the drying business in charge. The boys went into the
river, and had a nice long swim, and then spent some time in carefully
packing everything into the boat. By the time the blankets were dry,
and they were ready to start, the tide had fallen so low that the boat
was high and dry; and in spite of all their efforts they could not
launch her while she was loaded.
“We’ll have to take all the things out of her,” said Harry.
“It reminds me,” remarked Joe, “of Robinson Crusoe that time he built
his big canoe, and then couldn’t launch it.”
“Robinson wasn’t very sharp,” said Jim. “Why didn’t he make a set of
rollers, and put them on the boat?”
“Much good rollers would have been,” replied Joe. “Wasn’t there a hill
between the boat and the water? He couldn’t roll a heavy boat uphill,
could he?”
“He could have made a couple of pulleys, and rigged a rope through
them, and then made a windlass, and put the rope round it,” argued Jim.
“Yes; and he could have built a steam-engine and a railroad, and
dragged the boat down to the shore that way, just about as easy.”
[Illustration: “IF YOU WANT TO DIG, DIG. I DON’T INTEND TO DO ANY MORE
DIGGING.”]
“He couldn’t dig a canal, for he thought about that, and found it would
take too much work,” said Jim.
“But we can,” cried Harry. “If we just scoop out a little sand, we can
launch the boat with everything in her!”
The boys liked the idea of a canal; and they each found a large shingle
on the beach, and began to dig. They dug for nearly an hour, but the
boat was no nearer being launched than when they began. Tom stopped
digging, and made a calculation. “It will take about two days of hard
work to dig a canal deep enough to float that boat. If you want to dig,
dig; I don’t intend to do any more digging.”
When the other boys considered the matter, they saw that Tom was right,
and they gave up the idea of making a canal. It was now about ten
o’clock, and they were rather tired and very hungry. A second breakfast
was agreed to be necessary, and once more the fire was built up and a
meal prepared. Then the boat was unloaded and launched, and the boys,
taking off their shoes and rolling up their trousers, waded in the
water and reloaded her. It was noon by the sun before they finally had
everything in order and resumed their cruise.
There was no wind, and it was necessary to take to the oars. The
disadvantage of starting at so late an hour soon became painfully
plain. The sun was so nearly overhead that the heat was almost
unbearable, and there was not a particle of shade. The boys had not
had a full night’s sleep, and had tired themselves before starting
by trying to dig a canal. Of course the labor of rowing in such
circumstances was very severe; and it was not long before first one and
then another proposed to go ashore and rest in the shade.
“Hadn’t we better keep on till we get into the Highlands. We can do it
in a quarter of an hour,” said Tom.
As Tom was pulling the stroke oar, and doing rather more work than any
one else, the others agreed to row on as long as he would row. They
soon reached the entrance to the Highlands, and landed at the foot of
the great hill called St. Anthony’s Nose. They were very glad to make
the boat fast to a tree that grew close to the water, and to clamber a
little way up the hill into the shade.
“What will we do to pass away the time till it gets cooler?” said
Harry, after they had rested awhile.
“I can tell you what I’m going to do,” said Tom; “I’m going to get some
of the sleep that I didn’t get last night, and you’d better follow my
example.”
All the boys at once found that they were sleepy; and, having brought
the tent up from the boat, they spread it on the ground for a bed,
and presently were sleeping soundly. The mosquitoes came and feasted
on them, and the innumerable insects of the summer woods crawled over
them, and explored their necks, shirt-sleeves, and trousers-legs, as is
the pleasant custom of insects of an inquiring turn of mind.
“What’s that?” cried Harry, suddenly sitting up, as the sound of a
heavy explosion died away in long, rolling echoes.
“I heard it,” said Joe; “it’s a cannon. The cadets up at West Point
are firing at a mark with a tremendous big cannon.”
“Let’s go up and see them,” exclaimed Jim. “It’s a great deal cooler
than it was.”
With the natural eagerness of boys to be in the neighborhood of a
cannon, they made haste to gather up the tent and carry it to the boat.
As they came out from under the thick trees, they saw that the sky in
the north was as black as midnight, and that a thunder-storm was close
at hand.
“Your cannon, Joe, was a clap of thunder,” said Harry. “We’re going to
get wet again.”
“We needn’t get wet,” said Tom. “If we hurry up we can get the tent
pitched and put the things in it, so as to keep them dry.”
They worked rapidly, for the rain was approaching fast, but it was not
easy to pitch the tent on a side hill. It was done, however, after
a fashion; and the blankets and other things that were liable to be
injured by the wet were safely under shelter before the storm reached
them.