“If he doesn’t show up couldn’t we take charge of the boat and run her across to the other side?” Bumpus was asking, as though about ready to try anything once.
“Toot your horn, Thad, and see if it’ll wake him up,” Allan suggested. “There’s so little to do on his lay that p’raps the ferryman takes a nap between trips.”
“That’s a good idea,” assented Thad, and accordingly he used the auto horn to some advantage, making certain doleful sounds that were easily calculated to awaken any sound sleeper.
Immediately a man appeared in view. He may have been taking a nap for all they ever knew. He was an old fellow wearing wooden shoes and a knit cap. As he approached the car he seemed to look them over curiously. Probably it was seldom indeed that any one outside of the natives came his way.
“See him take in our little American flags, will you?” remarked Bumpus, while Giraffe entered into a labored conversation with the ferryman; “he must know what they stand for, too, because I could see his eyes light up when he first noticed the same.”
Giraffe at that moment turned to them.
“Yes, you’re right about that, Bumpus,” he said; “this man says he has a son and his family out in Cincinnati, and wants to know if we’ve ever met Hans Kreitzner. I told him I wasn’t quite sure, because there were some people in America I’d never yet run across, though I hoped to round them all up later on.”
“Don’t josh the poor old fellow, Giraffe,” urged Bumpus; “as for me, I’m so glad because we haven’t run across a pesky military guard here at the ferry I’d be willing almost to promise to look his son up when I got back home—by mail, of course, and tell him I’d met his respected paw.”
“How about taking us on his ferryboat, Giraffe?” asked Thad.
“I hope he hasn’t got his strict orders, like all the rest of the men we’ve run across to-day,” ventured Allan.