There was no wind, and it was necessary to take to the oars. The disadvantage of starting at so late an hour soon became painfully evident. The sun was so nearly overhead that the heat was almost unbearable, and there was not a particle of shade. The boys had not had a full night's sleep, and had tired themselves before starting by trying to dig a canal. Of course the labor of rowing in such circumstances was very severe; and it was not long before first one and then another proposed to go ashore and rest in the shade.
"Hadn't we better keep on till we get into the Highlands? We can do it in a quarter of an hour," said Tom.
As Tom was pulling the stroke oar, and doing rather more work than any one else, the others agreed to row on as long as he would row. They soon reached the entrance to the Highlands, and landed at the foot of the great hill called St. Anthony's Nose. They were very glad to make the boat fast to a tree that grew close to the water, and to clamber a little way up the hill into the shade.
"What will we do to pass away the time till it gets cooler?" said Harry, after they had rested awhile.
"I can tell you what I'm going to do," said Tom; "I'm going to get some of the sleep that I didn't get last night, and you'd better follow my example."
All the boys at once found that they were sleepy; and having brought the tent up from the boat, they spread it on the ground for a bed, and presently were sleeping soundly. The mosquitoes came and feasted on them, and the innumerable insects of the summer woods crawled over them, and explored their necks, shirt sleeves, and trousers legs, as is the pleasant custom of insects of an inquiring turn of mind.
"What's that?" cried Harry, suddenly sitting up, as the sound of a heavy explosion died away in long, rolling echoes.
"I heard it," said Joe; "it's a cannon. The cadets up at West Point are firing at a mark with a tremendous big cannon."
"Let's go up and see them," exclaimed Jim. "It's a great deal cooler than it was."
With the natural eagerness of boys to be in the neighborhood of a cannon, they made haste to gather up the tent and carry it to the boat. As they came out from under the thick trees, they saw that the sky in the north was as black as midnight, and that a thunder-storm was close at hand.