“Don’t shout until you are out of the woods,” replied Jones, who knew that his friend was congratulating himself on his cunning. “The pursuit has not fairly begun. He may gobble you yet and all the rest of us into the bargain.”
“Well, it will not cost him anything to try,” said Enoch, confidently. “I am more at home on the water than I am on land, and the boy who beats me handling a yacht must get up in the morning.”
“But they will follow us in tugs,” said Lester.
“Then we’ll hide among some of the islands in the bay and let them hunt for us,” replied Enoch. “I tell you it will be a cold day when we get left.”
After Lester had paid for the lunch they had eaten in the grove, he and his companions left Cony Ryan’s hospitable roof and set out for the dock, neglecting no precautions on the way. Jones and Lester went ahead, stopping at every corner and looking into every doorway, and Enoch, who followed a short distance behind them, did not advance until they notified him, by a peculiar whistle, that he had nothing to fear.
By keeping altogether on the back streets and giving the business thoroughfares a wide berth, they managed to reach the dock without meeting anybody. There was no one in sight when they got there, but Jones’s low whistle was answered from a dozen different hiding places.
“Ahem!” said Enoch, looking toward the schooner.
“Ahem!” came the answer through the darkness. “Who is it?”
“The band,” replied Enoch; and then there came a few minutes of silence and impatient waiting, during which Coleman got into his dory and shoved off toward the dock. Another whistle from Jones brought several students from their places of concealment, and when the dory was filled to its utmost capacity, it was pulled back to the schooner. Coleman was obliged to make three trips in order to take them all off, and when Jones, who was the last to leave the dock, sprang over the schooner’s rail, he announced that not a single one of the band was missing.