Tom Edwards producing other of the food taken from the Brandt, they made a breakfast in the open, without stopping to build a fire; and they quenched their thirst from the water of a little stream that trickled down through the wood.
“This will do well enough for now,” said Tom Edwards, as he bolted a piece of biscuit, hungrily; “but just you wait till we get into civilization once more, Jack, old fellow. I’m going to take you to Boston with me, and we’ll go to the best hotel there, and I’ll order a big sirloin steak as thick as your two hands, and we’ll sit and eat till we choke.”
“Hooray!” mumbled Harvey, biting into a piece of corn bread; “isn’t it good to be free?”
When they had eaten, they started back into the country, on a long détour to avoid the farmhouse, to make their way to the shore in the neighbourhood of the steamboat landing. They walked across a somewhat uneven country, broken here and there by little streams that flowed down into the creeks that cut into the shore line. Some of these were frozen so as to bear their weight; others had open water, so they were forced to walk some distance in order to find a crossing place. Once they ascended a hill of perhaps a hundred feet, from which they could see the surrounding country and the river, plainly.
There were several smaller hills lying to the eastward of this, between one of which a stream of some considerable size ran down into a large creek above Millstone landing. They could see the farmhouse from this hill; and, with the coming in of the morning, they saw a sight that thrilled them—that made them burn with exultation—the bug-eye Brandt, making sail and going across the harbour to Solomon’s Island. They watched the craft with satisfaction for a long time. Then they slowly descended the hill in the direction of the landing.
Crossing more uneven country, Harvey and Tom Edwards came finally into a road that trended down toward the shore. They followed that for about three quarters of a mile, till another road crossed it at right angles. At this point, they espied, coming down the road that intersected the one they were on, a man, carrying a gunny sack over one shoulder. They halted, and waited for him to come up.
The man was ill favoured, roughly dressed, stooping and almost stealthy in his gait, looking about him from side to side. As he approached, he eyed them slyly out of the corners of a pair of sharp, black eyes, turning his head and giving them no direct glance. He would have passed them without speaking, but Tom Edwards hailed him.
“Can you tell us what time the boat will go up the river to-day, sir?” he asked.
The man stopped, lowered his sack to the ground, and stood, darting glances at them, without replying for a moment. Then he answered, curtly, “’Twon’t go up at all to-day.”
Tom Edwards and Harvey looked at each other, with keenest disappointment on their faces.