While the boys lay in the cabin, sheltered from the gulf wind which had been so grateful the night before, the heavy rumbling of a freight train and sharp call of an engine whistle came to their ears.
“That listens good to me,” Alex cried. “Say, fellows, how would you like to know, just for a couple of hours, that the noise of that train came from the Union station in little old Chicago?”
“Yes,” Jule exclaimed, “I like to look into the river and think I’m standing on Madison street bridge! Do you remember the stories the newspapers used to print about the water in the Chicago river, before the drainage canal was put through? Pretty good fiction, eh?”
Captain Joe chuckled until his shoulders shook like jelly.
“Every reporter on the Chicago papers in those days,” the captain said, “was turning out works of fiction. They used to print pieces about men falling off Madison street bridge and off Clark street bridge and dashing out their brains on the solid water below. And then they used to tell stories about the river being so black the typists used to color their ribbons in it. There’s something about Chicago that seems to me to stir the imagination! It’s a great old town!”
The boys discussed their home city until something like ten o’clock. They were just going to bed when a call came from the shore at the end of the cove. All were on deck instantly.
“Perhaps that’s Max,” suggested Jule, “or one of those river pirates.”
“Or it may be a detachment of ruffians looking for the lost channel,” Case put in.
Captain Joe sat back and laughed heartily.
“Boys,” he said, “I believe that lost channel has turned your heads. You talk about it, and drink it, and sleep it, and I believe you would eat it if there was anything tangible about it. I’m interested in it, too, kids, but I don’t spread it on my bread instead of butter.”