She was about one-third full of water, and it was necessary this should be removed before the party went on board, otherwise the craft would have been swamped by the additional cargo, therefore, with two tomato cans as bailing dishes, Jimmy and Bill went to work.
Ten minutes later everything was ready for the departure.
Bill brought a pair of oars from its hiding-place on the dock, and the boys clambered on board with the greatest care in seating themselves that every inch of space might be economized.
The merry-makers had worked silently to prevent the possibility of being overheard by any of Sim’s party, and in perfect silence they pushed out past the pier, Bob and Tom plying the oars when they were once in the stream.
It was not an eventful, but rather a long voyage to the Erie Basin, where the craft which was to serve as banquet-hall was lying.
Built after the fashion of other canal-boats, there was nothing particularly prepossessing in appearance as viewed from the outside, and Josiah thought they had taken a great amount of trouble in order to reach an undesirable place for the festivities.
“Wait till you see the cabin,” Bill said, much as if he read by the expression on their guest’s face the misgivings in his mind. “I have fixed her in great shape, an’ after we get inside, with the boat pulled under the pier, Sim Foss can sneak ’round all he wants to without findin’ where we are.”
Josiah soon learned that at least a portion of Bill’s statement was correct, although he failed to see any evidences of the “fixin’.”
The cabin was apparently as the owners of the boat had left it, save for four empty bottles in one corner; and these, Master Foss explained, had been brought to serve as candlesticks.
That they would be free from the scrutiny of any one who chanced to pass that way seemed positive, when the hatch was drawn, and the interior of the stuffy cabin shrouded in darkness.