It was so cool that Ben brought their blankets and tucked them around Ralph, who was shivering.
"Cheer up, comrade! we are miles away from Saint Bernard and his cherubs; and after you get over this bad turn we'll have a jolly time, and no thanks to them!"
Ralph nodded, and rewarded him with a dismal smile.
Ben had hardly got his friend snugly tucked away in the blankets, when he glanced back shoreward and saw the steamboat making straight toward them apparently.
"Ralph Drayton, there's the steamboat covered with our boys! Let's get out of this as quick as we can. They'll see us!"
Ralph forgot his misery, and throwing off his blankets, he looked quickly in the direction indicated by Ben.
Sure enough! The boat was coming with its crowd of merry boys, and the band playing gaily.
Without a word the two boys crept along the side of the cabin away from the steamboat, and disappeared in the depths below.
The captain saw them, and being keen at noting signs, he guessed at once that his passengers were runaways from the party on the boat. "But it beats me what they wanted to run away from a good time for! I ain't got to the core of that apple yet," he soliloquized with a puzzled look.
Ralph and Ben remained in close confinement until long after the boat had passed the smack, not daring to look out themselves, nor to ask either of the men on deck, fearing that they in turn might ask questions that would be disagreeable to answer. At length Ralph gasped, "O Ben, just look out; I can't stay in this horrid place any longer!"