Hunger seized him, and so, remembering the stories he had heard of Indians tightening their belts during famines, he wound his underdrawers about his stomach, pulling the legs taut, then tying them. "Poor substitute for a meal," he mumbled, laughing. At least, he could laugh now, and that counted for something. He dressed and went to the water for another drink; then he began to pace slowly along the strip of sand, not daring to sit down and risk becoming numbed again.
"Better wait here for a few hours," he said. "They'll probably get sick of watching and seeing nothing but black night. Later I'll go down and see what that thing is. If it's a flatboat or a raft, I'll try to get across on that. If it isn't, I'll climb up the bank and get a log. Then I'll try swimming across holding to it. That'll keep me up if I get a cramp. Lord, I'm hungry! Guess I'd better not think about it. I'm talking to myself as though I'd reached my second childhood. Oh, well…." He paused and looked up toward the embankment. "You thought you'd get me, didn't you, Alf? Not this Yankee!"
So the next two hours passed, while Tom walked back and forth, keeping the blood stirring in his veins, talking to himself. At last he decided that the time had come for him to go down the river. He took up a small stick to help him feel the way along the shore, pulled his sodden felt hat down securely on his head, and started, picking his way carefully and silently among the stones. After a few minutes he began to zig-zag along the bank so that he could not possibly miss that oblong thing for which he was searching. He was wondering if he had passed it, or if, after all, it had just been a trick of the shadows, when his stick sounded hollowly against a wooden object. He leaned forward and felt of it. It was a flatboat!
In the darkness he walked about it, running his hands along the edge. It measured about ten feet by fourteen feet, he decided. Then he climbed in and felt of the bottom. At one corner there was a hole. The boat had probably been washed loose from its mooring during some previous flood time, and had come ashore here, striking the rocks. Certainly it had not been in the water for a long time, for the bottom boards were warped, with gaping seams between them.
"But it's a boat," said Tom, as he got out. He went to the water; the end of the flatboat was two yards from the river. Then he went back, clutched the end and tried to move it. Exerting all his strength, the boat barely stirred.
"Whew! Too heavy for me." He tried again, but with no better success. "Have to get a lever," he panted.
He spent the next ten minutes feeling about the beach, hoping that he would come upon something which he could use to pry the boat forward. But there was nothing; the beach was bare of everything except rocks and sand. For a moment he stood there, too keenly disappointed to know what he should do next. Then he turned toward the embankment.
Halfway up, a stone upon which he was standing became dislodged and tumbled to the bottom, carrying a rush of gravel with it. Tom, clinging to an exposed root, waited breathlessly, expecting an outcry from some guard who had heard the noise. He secured another footing, reached higher on the root, and dragged himself up another foot. Presently his head came over the edge; then he found a little tree which would bear his weight, swung a leg over and squirmed to the top. Again he waited, listening and getting his breath.
He crawled through the bushes on his hands and knees, pressing down the branches and selecting each inch of the way. Presently he came to the road. Another wait to catch the sound of a guard. Then forward again.
"There!" he exclaimed, as his hand touched a rail fence. He arose and pressed down on the top rail, testing it for strength. It bent too easily under his weight, so he tried the one underneath. That was stronger. Silently he disengaged the ends of the top rail and laid it on the ground; then he took up the rail he wanted, held it above his head and swung it over the bushes until it pointed towards the river. He made his way to the center of it, balanced it carefully over one shoulder and started creeping for the river again.