“That’s the reason why,” resumed Tom. “The steam has burst the can, and the soup has gone up.”
“We’ve got another can,” said Harry, “and we’ll punch a hole in that one. What an idiot I was not to think of its bursting! It’s a good job that it didn’t hurt us. I should hate to have the newspapers say that we had been blown up and awfully mangled with soup.”
The other can of soup was safely heated, and the boys made a comfortable supper. They drove a stake in the sand, and fastened the boat’s painter securely to it, and then “turned in.”
“No tide to rouse us up to-night, boys,” said Harry, as he rolled himself in his blanket. “I sha’n’t wake up till daylight.”
“We’d better take an early start,” remarked Tom. “We haven’t got on very far because we started so late this morning. If we get off by six every morning, we can lie off in the middle of the day, and start again about three o’clock. It’s no fun rowing with the sun right overhead.”
“Well, it isn’t more than eight o’clock now; and, if we take eight hours’ sleep, we can turn out at four o’clock,” said Harry. “But who is going to wake us up? Joe and Jim are sound asleep already, and I’m awful sleepy myself. I don’t believe one of us will wake up before seven o’clock anyway.”
Tom made no answer, for he had dropped asleep while Harry was talking. The latter thought he must be pretending to sleep, and was just resolving to tell Tom that it wasn’t very polite to refuse to answer a civil question, when he found himself muttering something about a game of base-ball, and awoke, with a start, to discover that he could not possibly keep awake another moment.
The boys slept on. The moon came out and shone in at the open tent-flap, and the tide rose to high-water mark, but not quite high enough to reach the tent. By-and-by the wheezing of a tow-boat broke the stillness, and occasionally a hoarse steam-whistle echoed among the hills; but the boys slept so soundly that they would not have heard a locomotive had it whistled its worst within a rod of the tent.
The river had been like a mill-pond since the thunder-storm, but about midnight a heavy swell rolled in toward the shore. It came on, growing larger and larger, and, rushing up the little beach with a fierce roar, dashed into the tent and overwhelmed the sleeping boys without the slightest warning.