He had found a small, lightly made garden hand-cart, two-wheeled, and when he set out for Green Lake all his baggage was in the cart, including the book, the angleworms, and the grasshoppers. He succeeded in getting away quietly, too, without giving Pat or anybody else a chance to ask him if he expected to need a wagon to bring home his fish.
It was getting very warm before he was half a mile from the house, for June days always grow warmer, rapidly, if you are shoving a hand-cart.
"It was a good lift to get the book in," thought Ned. "I wish I'd greased the wheels."
The boat lay idly at the shore when he reached the landing-place. A pair of oars lay in it, but he saw also something which pleased him much more.
"Mast and sail!" he shouted. "Who'd ha' thought of that! Hurrah!"
There they lay, a short mast, truly, and a mere rag of sail, with a boom and sprit all ready for use.
"I know how," thought Ned. "I can step the mast and hoist the sail, myself. Then I can tack all over the lake, without any hard work a-rowing."
His first undertaking, however, was to get his huge folio volume into the boat and not into the water. He succeeded perfectly, with some effort. Then he stepped his bit of a mainmast, as he called it, through the hole bored for it in the forward seat of the punt. It was plain that he knew something about naval affairs, for he spoke of his snub-nosed cruiser as a "catboat," and regretted that she had no "tiller."
