Mr. Vandegriff walked rapidly toward the office, and as he drew the printed form of a receipt from his pocket-book, the Armada's bell rang. He quickly signed the receipt and placed it in a small account-book which he handed over to the boy, who ran out and sprang on board the Armada.
"All ashore, Tony," shouted the captain, from his perch on the hurricane-deck. "We are in a great hurry. Where in the world is that clerk of yours, Vandegriff?"
The coal-dealer replied by pointing out Tony, who shook his account-book at the captain. The latter nodded his head to signify that it was all right, tapped the bell, and when the lines had been cast off and the staging hauled in, the Armada backed out into the stream, taking the coal-barge with her.
As soon as the forecastle had been cleared up, long planks were run down into the barge, and the crew of the steamer, assisted by Mr. Vandegriff's two negroes, began filling up the bunkers, Tony and one of the clerks sitting on the guard and checking the boxes as fast as they were brought on board. It was about nine o'clock when the Armada moved away from the wharf-boat, and it was a little past three in the afternoon when she cast off the lines and left the barge to the mercy of the current, and Tony Richardson sitting on the forward-deck with more than five hundred dollars in his pocket, and a look of excitement on his face. It was a much larger amount of money than he had ever had in his possession before.
"Don't I wish it was mine?" thought Tony, as he straightened out his leg and passed his hand over the huge lump in his pocket. "I wouldn't see St. Louis again for one while, I bet you."
Notwithstanding his great desire to free himself from the restraints of home and school, and to enter upon the glorious career of which he had so often dreamed, Tony had never once thought of stealing money enough to enable him to carry out his plans. The idea had never once suggested itself to him, and if it had, by any chance, came into his mind, it would have frightened him. He would no more have taken a dollar of Mr. Vandegriff's money to keep him in his runaway scheme, than he would have jumped into the river and made way with himself.
"Now, I believe I will eat my lunch," continued Tony, "and I hope by the time it is finished that tug will be along. What Mr. Vandegriff told me about Hardy makes me just a trifle nervous. But didn't he say that these men were all right? He certainly did, and so I have nothing to fear."
Tony squared around on the barge so that he could look up and down the river without turning his body, and while disposing of the good things, the steward of the Armada had put up for him, he kept a good lookout for the tug whose appearance he awaited with no little impatience and anxiety. Now and then he turned his eyes toward the two negroes, who were seated on the after-deck engaged in very earnest conversation, but he paid no particular attention to them until he saw them arise to their feet, as if moved by a common impulse, and start toward the bow, walking along the gunwales of the barge, one on each side. When the barge was loaded to its full capacity, the top of these gunwales was not more than two feet above the water; but as fast as the coal was taken out, the unwieldy craft rose, and now, when the cargo was almost all removed, the gunwales were six or seven feet high. Each end of the barge was covered by a deck about eight feet long, and this was where the crew stood when they were handling the lines.
This movement on the part of the negroes alarmed Tony, who dropped the leg of the chicken he held in his hand, and sprang to his feet. Something told him that it would never do to allow those men to come too close to him.
"Say, you Mose and Sambo," he shouted, "what are you coming here for? Go back where you belong."