“You never know what you can do till you try,” said Billy with his usual poise. He pulled some wire out of the back canoe, which, like the Mother’s Bag in the Swiss Family Robinson, seemed to have everything in the world in it. The boys set to work with such a will that the last demon was wriggling naturally as life, and there was ten minutes yet to spare, when they were done.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Billy helped Winona in, felt for the matches, and got in himself. Tom pushed them off from shore. It was all done with the solemnity of a funeral procession. Winona looked at the boys’ excited faces, and laughed.
“We’re not being rowed off to execution,” she explained, though she felt a little excited herself. “I’m perfectly calm—O-oh! Gracious! What’s that?”
“That” was a long, unearthly wail which seemed to come from the inside of the canoe itself. It increased and quavered and howled and died down again.
“Oh, that’s us,” said Billy placidly. “Tom and I borrowed Boots Morris’s father’s Gabriel horn and fastened it into the canoe this afternoon. Forgot to tell you. Don’t you like it?”
“Lovely!” gasped Winona. “Only—only it was a little sudden, the first time. I thought Mr. Bones was expressing his feelings.”
“It adds to the effect all right,” said Billy proudly.
“It certainly does!” said Winona. “Yes, we have a tow-rope, marshal. Tie us on, please.”
“Well, you do look like you came from somewhere else!” said the marshal—he was the dock owner by day—as he fastened the “Ship o’ the Fiend” into line. “I don’t want anything more like D. T.’s than you be!”