"Why don't you go straight in?" asked Jarvis.
"We should land high and dry on the rocks if we did," answered the skipper, with a short laugh. "Others have tried that very thing. The hulls of some of their ships are down there under the water now."
The boys began to realize that navigating the Great Lakes required a great deal of skill and knowledge.
"There is a ship in the locks now," announced Captain Simms.
Both boys gazed into the night, but they could see no ship. The master signaled the engine room to slow down, explaining, at the same time, that they would have to drift in slowly and stop until the other boat got out.
The channel began to narrow as the master directed the wheel this way and that until they found themselves in a walled-in channel that led directly to the locks themselves.
"Snub her!" commanded the captain, leaning from the pilot-house window. A ladder was shoved over the side of the moving ship, a man on either side of it on deck pushing it along so that it might not be dragged. Quick as a flash a sailor sprang on the ladder, and, grasping the side pieces, shot down to the dock on that side, a distance of some twenty feet. Following came others, all getting down in the same manner. It was a dangerous thing to do and excited the wonder and admiration of the two boys in the pilot-house.
"If I were to try that I would be in the water," laughed Rush. "It is a good thing for me that I am at the wheel, for I wouldn't be able to resist trying that experiment."
Hawsers were cast over from the deck, and these, the men who had gone over the side, twisted about snubbing posts. At the same time the ship's propeller began reversing slowly at a signal from the captain. The ship came to an easy stop. The skill with which it had all been done, made a deep impression on the Iron Boys.
A few moments later the gates of the locks opened and the other steamer moved slowly out. So close did they pass the "Richmond" that some of the men reached out and shook hands across the gulf, while the two captains held a brief conversation. Then the "Richmond" let go her moorings and moved slowly into the Canadian locks. The gates swung to behind them, the water began rushing from the other end of the locks and the ship rapidly settled until her decks were level with the dock beside which she stood. The men who had gone over the side now stepped aboard and hauled in the hawsers after them.