“No use talking, Thad, the chap who owns this boat can’t be that Irishman who when some one asked him why he didn’t mend his leaky roof said that when the weather was dry he didn’t think to bother with it; and when it rained why he couldn’t mend it. This one is as tight as a drum. We’re a lucky lot of scouts again; and I’m only sorry that the mysterious owner isn’t here to enjoy the hospitality of the shanty boat.”
Once Thad walked over to the door, which he found could be secured inside with a bar. It also had a padlock on the outside, showing that it might be the habit of the owner when he left his home for a time to fasten it securely.
“I’m glad that padlock wasn’t in use when we struck here,” remarked Allan, who had followed the leader over. “We’d have been compelled to break in, and that’s a serious offense against the law, if you’re caught, though we’d have left money to pay for our housing.”
Thad opened the door, and they looked out into the pitch darkness of the night, though neither of them essayed to step beyond the sill. The storm was now in full blast, and the river seemed to be rushing past the moored shanty boat with foam on the little waves formed by the sweeping wind.
“Looks pretty ugly, doesn’t it?” said Thad.
“I never would have believed the Susquehanna could get on such a rampage as this,” Allan remarked in turn. “I always had an idea it was a peaceful sort of river, with beautiful banks, and the canal running along in places parallel to the river; but I declare you’d think it was the big Mississippi right now, what we can see of it, from the way our light shines on the water.”
“It’s on the boom, you know,” Thad told him, “and there’s an unusual amount of water in the channel; but from the way the rain’s coming down it’ll be a flood before twenty-four hours, if ever there was one along here.”
“Lucky we struck a boat then, instead of some shanty close to the bank; because in that case, Thad, we might have been washed away before morning, as the river kept on rising a foot an hour perhaps.”
Thad closed the door again.
“Looks a whole lot better inside than out,” he observed, “which makes me feel glad we’re not cowering under a branch shelter, and taking a ducking. Even with the rubber blankets we couldn’t expect to keep half way dry when it’s pelting down as steady as that.”