About the last place in the world where anyone would look for a missing boy, at about two o’clock in the morning, would be in a lifeboat on the outer side of a steam tug in the East River.
The startled officers of the House of Refuge were not at first thinking of the river, but of things inside of their high, strong walls, which no boy could climb over or get through.
Jim and his friends in the little lifeboat were baling her out rapidly. Of course, it had filled on plunging in, but very quickly enough was out for another boy to clamber down and help without sinking her gunwale under. Then they all came down, and they seemed to be one shiver of mingled fear, excitement and exultation. In a minute more, the oars were out, and, just as two or three men with lanterns came hurrying down toward the wharf, Jim exclaimed, under his breath:
“Pull, boys!—I’ll steer out into the dark. We’ll go with the tide. They’ll come after us with the tug. It’s going to be a race!”
Four boys at the oars and one to steer made a fair crew for so small a boat. She was swift, too, and so was the tide that swept her onward, but her pursuers knew, now, that she was gone and steam was already up on the tug. Only a minute or so more was wasted by them in waiting for the engineer, and another minute in casting loose, but every second of those minutes was made the most of by the runaways.
“There goes her whistle!” exclaimed one of the rowers. “She’s after us——”
“She can go faster than we can.”
“We’ve a good start.”
“No talking, boys,” said Jim. “Our chance is good, yet,—Hullo!”
Not far ahead of him, as he sat in the stern of the boat, he could see the lights on a great Sound steamer, as she came puffing along against the tide, but it struck him that she had made her appearance, suddenly, as if she had been hidden.