There was a swift flitting along the corridor, a careful pulling to of five grated doors, and the patrol who went by them a minute or so later discovered no sign of anything unusual.
Jim lay awake for a while. There was a glow of exultation all over him, for he felt that he had gained one point now. Then he thought of the great world of freedom he hoped to escape into.
“Spring is here,” he thought. “Pretty soon things’ll be green and growing. I want to go up and see our place, but I won’t go in. I want to see Aunt Betty, but I don’t want to see Uncle John. He’d say I did wrong to get out. I don’t believe she would. There’s a farm here and lots o’ greenhouses, but only a few boys can work in them. I mean to be out in the country when summer comes.”
Between him and the country, however, lay the great city, and between Randall’s Island and that ran the deep, swift tides of the East River. It made him shiver to think of that, but he could see, in his mind’s eye, not only the river, with the wharves and buildings on the opposite side, but the one little wharf on this side, where the little tug that belonged to the House of Refuge was sure to be moored, each night, after all its trips to and fro were ended. He knew she was there, now, a tight little craft, mostly chimney and cabin, and just then he suddenly sat up in bed.
“That’s it!” he said, almost aloud. “I remember! There’s a little lifeboat on top,—on the roof deck. If we could get her! There might be a watchman on the wharf.—There might not.—I guess we could get her into the water. O!”
There seemed to be really less water in the East River, now he had thought of that boat, but he sank back on his pillow and went to sleep while he went over and over the obstacles that lay between him and the wharf where the tug was moored. His boy associates, curiously enough, were long since sleeping soundly, as if they had been contented to leave all the required thinking and all the anxiety to their busy minded and daring young captain.
VII
ONE PLAN THAT FAILED
Early hours were the rule of the dormitory, but general conversation could not begin at once on getting up. Jim did not feel like speaking to anybody. His first strong impression was that any officer who looked him in the face might see there that something was going on. His next, as he met his confederates, one by one, was that he could see by their faces that they were trying to keep a secret.