The Erie Canal begins at Albany, but the boys had been told that they had better enter the big ditch at Troy, about seven miles up the river.
No sooner had the “Gazelle” come to a stop inside the canal basin than captain and crew were besieged by people wanting to get the job of towing them to Buffalo.
“Take you through for a hundred and ten dollars, sir,” said one.
“Oh, g’wan,” said another, “he’s robbing yer. I’ll take yer through for seventy-five.”
“And I’ve got twenty,” Ransom said to himself.
The lowest offer was sixty-five dollars, and at that they would have to tag on to the end of a fleet of grain boats that could not possibly get through inside of two weeks. Every minute was precious now, for before very long ice would form and navigation would be closed on the lakes.
It was a discouraging outlook, but the boys, nevertheless, made ready for the long trip across the State. With the aid of a derrick, the yawl’s masts were taken out, her rigging dismantled and running gear unrove and neatly coiled. By nightfall, the “Gazelle” was completely unrigged and reminded one, as Frank suggested, of “a man whose head had been shaved.”
“If you won’t pay the price to be towed through, what are you going to do?” Arthur asked when all were sitting in the cabin.
“Tow her by hand,” Kenneth asserted.
“What, four hundred miles by hand?”