“We’ll soon pull out of here,” he said.
“Where are you going to voyage to now?” asked the captain’s wife.
“To Buffalo,” he answered. “I’m going there to get a load of grain and bring it back here.”
[Lightfoot ran close to this water, the boys racing after him.]
“Are you going to take the boat out empty?” asked the woman, as she set a dish of potatoes and meat on the little table in the cabin.
“No,” he answered, “we are going to travel a little way in the boat, then we will take on a load of coal. We will carry that a hundred miles or so, and then when we take that out the boat will be empty again, and, after it is cleaned, we will go on to Buffalo and get the grain. We will start soon.”
Lightfoot heard all this through the wooden wall, but he did not know what it meant. He looked about the hold as well as he could. He could see no one in it. It was like being in a big, empty barn.