“There isn’t any train, and we can’t walk. Ba,” she said to the happy Bahaman, “you’ll have to pole us home.”
The obedient darkey, without any great gusto, however, began unlashing two long poles that were made fast to the deck alongside the washboard. Andy understood.
“Can you do that?” he asked. “Is the river shallow enough?”
“The Indian River is like a lot of people,” answered Mrs. Anderson, laughing. “It’s not anyways as deep as it looks. And Captain Anderson has one weakness—he’ll never leave his boat if he goes sailing. He’ll come home in it if he has to push it every foot of the way. That’s why we’ve got the poles.”
Ba had already cast off and (having extinguished his cigar and stowed it away in his pocket), was getting the Valkaria under way. As the boat began to move, he walked along the deck gangway to the bow, and dropping the end of his twelve-foot pole to the bottom, rested the other end against his shoulder and began to walk aft. As he did so, the boat moved forward under the pressure of Ba’s feet.
“Great!” shouted Andy, catching up the other pole. “That’s fun. We’ll get you home quicker’n a couple o’ canal boat mules.”
Ba did not protest. Showing Andy how to alternate with him so that one of them was pushing forward while the other was returning to the bow, the colored man and the eager boy soon had the little yacht moving on her course.
Andy’s black and blue shoulder was good proof the next day that he did his share. Ba crooned the songs of the “out islands” when the time dragged, and at last, after eight o’clock, Mrs. Anderson detected the pin-point light of the lantern she knew Captain Anderson would hang on the end of the pier.
The captain, receiving the tired stragglers with many a joke, showed his skill as a cook in the hot supper he had ready. The evening meal disposed of, it was a new pleasure to Andy, in spite of his stiff limbs and sore shoulder, to help carry the aeroplane material to the boathouse, and almost a supreme happiness to sit in the light of the rising moon and recount all his experiences to his friend.
After a time, Andy went into the house and soon returned with the captain’s chart of the Bahamas. Spreading it out on the desk, the boy began studying it intently.