“I don’t know,” Ransom confessed, rubbing his eyes; “queer, wasn’t it?”
Frank’s clatter as he made ready the supper were the only sounds.
“Listen!”
Again the long sigh. It seemed to come from the very heart of some one in intense pain.
Both boys jumped up, and Arthur called softly to Frank to come on deck. Then all three leaned over the side, looking eagerly for the soul in torment. They half expected to see a white upturned face showing against the dark water. Again the sound of escaping breath. The boys looked in the direction from whence it came and saw, not the white face of a drowning woman, nor anything else of a like romantic nature, but the black, glistening hide of a huge porpoise, as it leisurely humped its back and disappeared below the surface.
“Phew! but that scared me,” remarked Arthur. “Thought somebody was in trouble, sure.”
“The laugh is on us, all right,” Kenneth said; but he shivered slightly in remembrance of the strange sound. “How’s supper, Frank? I’m hungry enough to eat half that porpoise.”
It was a merry party that sat down to the meal of oysters, which had been given to them by their fishermen friends; spuds, as the boys called the potatoes; coffee, bread, without butter, and a treasured pie, rather the worse for wear, but keenly relished for all that. What was left of the meal would not have satisfied a bird, and the dishwashing that night was an easy job.
All three of the boys felt that their fun was really only just beginning. The cruise down the Mississippi seemed like a nightmare as they looked back upon it. Cold, unending exertion, sickness and imminent danger, coupled with a necessity for great economy, had taken all the zest out of the enjoyment they might have had.
Something has been said about Ransom’s financial condition; the same thing was true of the other boys. Clyde and Arthur hoped and expected to make some money along the way to help pay expenses, as did Kenneth and Frank; but fortune was against them and they had to get along as best they could on the small sums they possessed. From St. Louis to New Orleans, taking in all expenses, including extra oil needed to keep from freezing, medicines and extra nourishing food for the invalid Arthur, the total cost per week per boy was a dollar and a half.