The others, drenched, but laughing, followed him, scrambling upon the deck and over the combing into the cockpit of a dilapidated cabin launch.
"What do you know about that!" said Roy. "Strike a light and let's see where we're at. I feel like a wet dish rag."
Presently Pee-wee's flashlight was poking its bright shaft this way and that as they looked curiously about them. They were in a neglected and disheveled, but very cosy, little cabin with sleeping lockers on either side and chintz curtains at the tiny portholes. A two-cylinder engine, so rusted that the wheel wouldn't turn over and otherwise in a dubious condition, was ineffectually covered by a piece of stiff and rotten oil cloth, the floor was cluttered with junk, industrious spiders had woven their webs all about and a frantic scurrying sound told of the hurried departure of some little animal which had evidently made its home in the forsaken hull.
"Oh, but this is great!" enthused Pee-wee. "This is the kind of an adventure you read about; now our adventures have really started."
"It'll be more to the purpose if we can get our supper really started," said Roy.
"How do you suppose it got here?" Pee-wee asked.
"That's easy," said Tom. "I didn't realize it before, but the tide must come up over the road sometimes and flood all this land here. That's what makes the road muddy. There must have been a good high tide some time or other, and it brought the boat right up over the road and here it is, marooned."
"Maybe it was the same flood that did all the damage down our way," Roy said. "Well, here goes; get the things out, Pee-wee, and we'll have some eats. Gee, it's nice in here."
It was nice. The rain pattered down on the low roof and beat against the little ports; the boat swayed a little in the heavier gusts of wind and all the delightful accompaniments of a life on the ocean wave were present—except the peril.
"You get out the cooking things," said Roy, "while I take a squint around and see if I can find something to kindle a fire in."