“I hope you took pains to put up that stout bar again, George, after you shut the double doors?” remarked Bumpus. “Not that I expect we’ll be troubled with unwelcome visitors in the shape of thieves while we’re roosting here, but you know it’s a heap nicer to know everything’s lovely and the goose hangs high.”
“Oh, don’t borrow any trouble about that bar, Buster,” George assured him. “Sure I put it back, just like I found it. I reckon the owner uses it when he’s working in here behind closed doors and doesn’t want to be disturbed. You know he locked the small door before going away. It’s all right, Buster, so let your dear timid soul rest in peace.”
“Oh, not that I’m afraid,” asserted the other indignantly; “honest, George, I only mentioned the matter as a simple precaution. Jack here might have done the same, given a little more time. You ought to know me better than that, George.”
The boat lay tied up in the basin inside the shed. Back of it was a water gate, which had also been closed and fastened by the owner before departing. Surrounded as they were by all the tools of a boat repairer’s trade, the boys felt as though they were in strange company. Possibly some of these same tools were built along different lines from what they might have found in the same sort of an establishment in the States.
For quite some time the four chums sat there and talked over various things of interest. Of course, these as a general rule had some connection with their own fortunes. Many questions were asked and answered, by one or another, as the case might be, although as a rule it was Jack to whom most of them were addressed. The whole scheme of a cruise down the Danube had originated with Jack, and for this reason, as well as others, the remaining three boys looked to him to find answers to the many puzzling enigmas that faced them.
Jack was fully qualified to assume this task, and it was seldom they were ever able to “stump” him with a twister.
So the time passed on, and, judging from the repeated way in which some of the motorboat boys were yawning without even putting up a hand to hide the gap, it became evident that they could not remain awake much longer.
Indeed, Jack himself felt pretty drowsy, and was just about to propose that the meeting adjourn sine die, so that each could prepare his cot for the night, just as he saw fit, when something occurred to interfere with this peaceful scheme.
“Listen! Seems to me that hollerin’s coming closer to us,” exclaimed Josh.