Paul fell in with the spirit of the joke and after pulling away from the boat, he blew the bugle and aroused Baker with the information that it was twelve o'clock. The Kansas City man took the oars and Creelman rolled up for a good nap. After fifteen or twenty minutes, Baker hailed Paul, who hauled up.
"Say, Captain, Creelman has pulled all the way down the river and is innured to this sort of thing. I'm not. It's just about knocking me out. Suppose you call him and tell him his hour is up."
"All right," said the Captain, and in a moment Creelman was rubbing his eyes.
"Confound it, Captain. It seems to me that was an almighty short hour," he said.
"It's one o'clock," sung the Captain, "time's up. Creelman took the oars without the least suspicion that Boyton would play a joke on him.
"Call Baker up again," he said to Paul after pulling several minutes, and Baker was called up accordingly.
"By George," exclaimed Baker, rubbing his eyes, "I must have slept awfully sound. It doesn't seem to me as though I have been down ten minutes."
He went to work, however, and Paul enjoyed himself calling them up, each thinking he had the best of the other. At three o'clock, they began to scan the horizon for daybreak. According to the hours they had pulled, it should have been five o'clock. As daylight did not appear, Creelman began to grow suspicious and as Baker was called up again he saw Creelman with a lighted match consulting his watch.
"What time is it?" inquired Baker.
"Three o'clock," replied Creelman in a mournful voice.