It was our plan to put up for the night within a mile of the big wide waters. Then in the morning, in continuing our passage to Steam Corners, we could conveniently stop at the island and fill our water cask at the spring in the rocks on the island’s north side. We really didn’t have a cask; what we had for a water container was a pail, but Scoop spoke of it as a cask in shaping our plans. Ships, he told us, always filled their “casks” with water—he never had read in a story of a ship filling its “pail.”
We liked to have him talk that way. For it lent an added touch of adventure to our cruise. We could almost imagine, in our talk, that we [[107]]were hardened south sea buccaneers bending a course to strike a rendezvous, as they tell about in pirate stories, where needed food and drink awaited us.
Having covered at least three miles in our moonlight passage, we stopped the engine and tied the Sally Ann to the stubbed bushes that grew along the water’s edge.
It was now close to twelve o’clock. And as we got ready to turn in, removing our shoes and outer clothing for sleeping comfort, we joked back and forth, telling each other that the “friendly ghost” was probably pacing the tow path, impatient for us to settle down for the night so that it could board our boat at the customary midnight hour.
And the funny part is that in our crazy talk we actually got Red scared. When we lay down on the stage, wrapped in our blankets, the frightened one sort of snuggled up to me, hanging to my arm. I didn’t shove him away. As a matter of fact I kind of liked his evident dependence in me. It gave me a sort of steady, capable feeling.
There was some final scattered talk about the greased pig and the Strickers. Certainly, we boasted, laughing, we had turned a neat trick. We had outclassed the Strickers in our smartness. [[108]]They’d think twice hereafter before electing to pester us.
“If I can find a pig post card in Steam Corners,” Scoop laughed, “I’m going to mail it to Bid Stricker. For I don’t want him to be in any doubt as to who dropped the greased porker on top of him.”
I often think of that night. It seemed to me as I lay in the moonlight, lulled by the gentle night sounds, that the exciting and hazardous things in life were a million miles away. Yet I was to learn, within a very few hours, that perils, grim and deadly, were fast swooping down upon us.
As Scoop said afterwards in recalling our evening’s light-hearted fun, those were the last really care-free hours that we enjoyed throughout the remainder of our cruise. After that night things moved swiftly—and the things that happened to us were not pleasant things, as you will learn.
But, as I have pictured in my story in the preceding paragraphs, we went to sleep with untroubled, contented minds. It was a great lark, we told ourselves. Days of hilarious fun lay ahead of us. Even Christopher Columbus’ voyage across an uncharted ocean was scarcely less thrilling than this voyage of ours into the canal’s hidden haunts. [[109]]