"Guess, George,—we got to do it, though. Young ladies is young ladies these days, and we might as well be civil and give in right at the start, for we got to do it in the finish."
I agreed.
As we were in a hurry, I helped Jake to eat his clam chowder. We went down to the beach to review the situation and inspect the apparatus we had to work with.
I told Jake the piano would probably weigh about five hundred pounds and that we would require to bolster up the raft sufficiently to carry some three hundred pounds more in order to be safe.
As it stood, the raft was capable of carrying some four hundred pounds, so we had just to double its capacity.
Jake knew his business. He rowed along the beach, and picked out short logs to suit his needs. He lashed them together and completed a raft that looked formidable enough to carry the good ship Siwash herself across the Bay to the shore.
We put off with a rowing boat fore and aft, long before the Siwash whistle announced her coming.
Had the sea been otherwise than calm as a duck pond, we would have experienced all kinds of trouble, for our raft was nothing more or less than an unwieldy floating pier.
When the steamer ran into the Bay, I noticed Miss Grant put out alone and row toward us.
"Jake," I exclaimed somewhat hotly, "if that young lady interferes with the way we handle this job, by as much as a single word, we'll steer straight for the shore and leave the piano to sink or swim."