“Tell us something we don’t know,” grumbled Mouser. “It’s easy to say we’ve got to get it—”
“And we will get it too,” Bobby interrupted decidedly. “I tell you, fellows,” he added excitedly, “what would be the matter with our getting busy now?”
“Great, if you’ll tell us what to do,” agreed Billy.
“Speedy action suits me down to the ground,” added Mouser, eagerly. “When do we start, Bobby?”
“Right now,” answered Bobby, his words tumbling over one another in his excitement. “See?” he added, lowering his voice still more and pointing over his shoulder toward the stern of the ship. “We’ll take that longboat over there when the time comes. Our job to-night will be to see that she’s provisioned. We’ll take enough food on board to last us a week if we need it.”
“Provision her,” Fred echoed excitedly. “I get you, Bobby. We can break into the hold and get what we need from those boxes—”
“But wait a minute,” Mouser broke in quickly. “If we provision the longboat now, what’s to prevent the food being discovered to-morrow?”
“I’ve thought of that,” said Bobby shortly. He was impatient of every moment’s delay. “But we’ll have to take our chance. We can stow most of the stuff away where it won’t be seen and we can cover the rest with the old tarpaulin I saw in the boat when I passed it to-day. What say? Are you coming or do you want to stand there all night arguing?”
Their answer was to follow Bobby’s lead as he crept silently along the deck to a hatchway they knew they could open.
It was a risky business, taking provisions from the hold at night, and the boys fully realized the risk they were running. But excitement made them forget danger.