The Topovers were enterprising and daring; and this fact, rather than their coarse manners and disregard of the laws of God and man, had drawn him to them. With him in tone and manners were half a dozen other boys like him, who had joined the Topovers. The old leader had been in some bad scrapes, and the people were generally sorry that he had not been convicted for his assault upon Paul Bristol, on the other side of the lake. They believed, that, in their own State, he would have been sent to a correctional institution.
The addition of boys like Ash Burton and Sam Spottwood had greatly changed the character of the original band. Hearing some of their number speak good English, had led them to improve their own language. But morally, they probably dragged down the recruits quite as much as the latter elevated them. On the whole, however, the tone of the crowd was improved.
The thing they called a boat had been built, and launched with some of the show which had attended the advent of the Lily into her destined element. The next thing in order, according to Tom's idea, was to rig her. It would not be proper to make an excursion in her, if she would float with half a dozen of them in her,—which had yet to be demonstrated,—until she had been rigged. The leader and some of the others had brought such bits of line as they could lay their hands upon, not always with a strict regard to the rights of property.
Ash Burton and Sam Spottwood did not believe in this folly, and they were disposed to rebel against the chief of the Topovers. The old sheet which Tom had brought for a sail would be as useless as a steam-engine without a propeller, in going down Beech Creek.
"If you want to rig her, go ahead, Tom," said Ash, when he had exhausted his arguments against the plan. "Sam and I will wait until you do the job."
"But I don't know how," added Tom. "I never had any thing to do with sailboats."
"Let him have his own way, Ash," suggested Sam Spottwood, in a low voice. "Help him out, and we shall get off all the sooner."
The new boat was not only to be rigged that day, but she was to convey her builders down the stream to the lake. Tom had hacked out a boom and gaff, and had set up the crooked stick which was to serve as a mast. One of the boys had to devote himself all the time to the work of baling out the leaky craft, while another was punching cotton-wool into the gaping seams, and plastering them over with putty.
The mast-hole was so large that the spar would not stand up; and Ash rigged a pair of shrouds to support it in place. The sail had already been bent on the boom and gaff in a very unnautical manner, and a few minutes served to attach it to the mast. The master rigger on this occasion was not disposed to waste any time on the rigging; and the gaff was not made to hoist and lower, but was simply tied to the top of the mast. A piece of bed-cord was fastened to the boom, to serve as the main sheet, and the craft was ready for sea.
But the calker had not yet finished his labors, and Sam Spottwood assisted him. The cotton had but a light hold on the wood, in the wideness of the seams, but the putty kept it in place. In another half-hour, the workmen declared that the boat was tight, and would keep dry, even in a heavy sea, out in the great lake. Ash Burton had some doubts on this point, but he said nothing. If they all got overboard, it would be easy enough to get out of the creek, it was so narrow.