He started, as his eye fell upon the ma.s.s of wood heaped at the edge of the hatchway. He advanced quickly, holding his weapon ready. At the edge of the hatchway, he stopped and listened. Then he aimed the revolver into the lantern light and called out, "Here you, who's down there? You're caught. I'll shoot the first man that tries to escape."

The answering voice of Tom Edwards came from the hold.

"I'm down here-Tom Edwards. I'll come out, all right. Don't shoot. I'm wedged in here, though. I can't be quick."

"Well, the lubber!" exclaimed Haley, in surprise. "You're the last one I'd have expected-" He broke off and stooped, to peer into the hold.

The next moment, the cook felt himself thrown violently backwards on the deck. The revolver was wrenched from his hand, and Jack Harvey stood over him.

"Don't you make any cry," muttered Harvey, "or you'll get hurt. Come on out, Tom, I've got Mr. Haley."

The cook, lifting himself to a sitting posture and gazing at the two in astonishment, still sought to intimidate them.

"Don't you go trying to escape," he said. "You'll get the worst of it.

Haley'll make trouble, and you'll be back here again inside of a week, and you'll get it worse than ever. Besides, you can't get ash.o.r.e on that stuff."

He changed his tone to a wheedling, mollifying one.

"Just you go back now, like good fellows," he said, "and I'll promise Haley I won't say a word about it. And I'll promise you the best grub you ever tasted, all the rest of the season. There won't be anything too good for you two."

Harvey laughed softly.

"It's no use," he replied. "You'll have to settle with Haley when he finds us gone. I hope he takes it out of you, too, for the stuff you've made us eat. Get up, now, and march aft."

Haley, whimpering, threatening and begging by turns, obeyed orders. They escorted him back to the cabin. In five minutes, Harvey had him tied up as ship-shape and as securely as ever a captive was bound. They laid him down on a bunk and left him.

With the revolver in their possession, there was no longer need of caution or quietness. Boldly they worked away, with the stuff from the hold, hitching it with bits of rope and making a raft of it alongside the vessel. They laid a flooring of the stuff and Harvey stepped on to it. To his chagrin, the raft sank under his weight.

"It's water-soaked!" he exclaimed to Tom Edwards, as he scrambled aboard again. "Well, we'll lay a cross-flooring and see what that will do."

They threw over the rest of the planks and wood, cross-wise, on the raft they had made. Harvey again stepped on to it.

It was, alas, little better than before. The wood, rotten and water soaked, had scarce sufficient buoyancy to float itself, let alone support two of them. Of its own weight, it sank so that the upper tier of wood floated clear of the lower.

Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards looked at each other, silently. Harvey's face was drawn with disappointment.

"Tom," he cried, desperately, "I'll take an axe and chop the old cabin of the Brandt apart before I'll give up. Come on, we mustn't lost time."

Tom Edwards, whose wits had been trained in years of successful business, proved more resourceful.

"What's the matter with using that hatch cover?" he said, pointing to it.

Harvey stopped short and gave a roar of delight. "Tom Edwards," he cried, "you're a daisy. I'm a simple-minded, brainless, wooden-headed, thick-skulled land-lubber. I never thought of that hatch, and there it was all ready to use. Here we've been working like dogs, and that old hatch will float us ash.o.r.e like a ship. Come on. In with it."

It cost them some effort, for the hatch was a big one. But it floated buoyantly when they had dragged it overboard; and it scarcely sank at all under Harvey's weight; and it held him and Tom Edwards when the latter had stepped cautiously off on to it. They made it fast alongside, with a piece of rope cut from dredging gear. Then they ran joyously for the cabin.

The cook met them with a flood of protestations, but they shut him up in short order. With the lantern light, they helped themselves to the meagre stores of the Brandt, and stuffed their pockets with biscuit and corn bread, baked for Haley and the mate. They also took matches, and they exchanged their ragged oil-skins for better ones. They had earned them ten times over, and they were leaving without a penny of wages for all the hard labour they had done.

"Say good-bye to Haley for me," said Tom Edwards, pausing a moment before the helpless captive. "And tell him I hope to meet him again some day.

And if I do, he'll be sorry."

They carried the cook into his galley, and shut him in. Then they found an extra pair of oars, stepped aboard the inverted hatch, the finest craft in all the world to them, and pushed for sh.o.r.e.

It was not easy, sculling the clumsy hatch, but Harvey made fair work of it, after he had cut a scull-hole in the combing, with his knife; and Tom Edwards aided by paddling on either side, making up with energy what he lacked in skill. The work warmed them, and they threw off their oil-skin coats.

The tide was running up the river and carried them some distance out of the course they had tried to make; but they came in to land finally and sprang out on sh.o.r.e. Harvey stooped and picked up a handful of the coa.r.s.e dirt and gravel, and handed it gravely to Tom Edwards.

"Merry Christmas, Tom Edwards," he said. "It's the real thing-the sh.o.r.e-the dry land once more. Isn't it bully?"

Tom Edwards threw his arms about his stalwart companion and fairly hugged him.

"Harvey," he said, "you're a comrade worth having. You've stood by through thick and thin, and you've lost chances to escape in order to stand by me. I won't forget it."

Harvey, freeing himself from his friend's grasp, offered his hand and they shook heartily. They started off, but Harvey turned back once and, seizing one of the oars, shoved the hatch out into the stream. Then he threw the oars after it.

"We owe Haley that much," he said-"and more. He'll have to follow the tide up river some time before he finds that stuff. Now, Tom, what shall we do? We're ash.o.r.e-by Jove! there was one time I began to think we'd never get here. And now we're here, I'm blest if I know what to do next."

"Well, we'll stop and hold a council of war," said Tom Edwards. So they paused at the top of the little bank they had ascended, adjusted their oil-skins once more, and looked off on to the river and the vessel that they had left behind.

Harvey whistled a tune and looked at his comrade, jubilant in spite of their perplexity.

"It's a regular jim-dandy Christmas eve!" he exclaimed.

"I'll remember it as long as ever I live," replied Tom Edwards.

CHAPTER XIII HENRY BURNS MAKES A DISCOVERY

It was after eleven o'clock when Harvey and Tom Edwards paused to rest and consider what they should do. The night was very still and clear, and, with the approach of Christmas day, there was already a perceptible change in the temperature. It was growing milder. With that, and the relief from their long oppression,-the sensation of being once more free-they felt a great buoyancy of spirit.

"I could sit right here all night," exclaimed Harvey, breathing deep and looking off exultantly at the river. "There's the old Brandt-bad luck to her! You can see the masts against the water, as she swings. Whew! But we've had a time of it. I'd like to see Haley when he finds us gone, and his hatch missing."

"Well, you are young and tough and you may not want a place to sleep, to-night," replied Tom Edwards; "but I don't mind saying that I do, and I want it soon as I can get it. I'm dead tired, and I'm dead sleepy. I wonder which one of these houses we'd better try."

"That's what bothers me," answered Harvey. "Sam Black told me once that a good many of these people along sh.o.r.e own shares in some of the dredgers, and they'd give a sailor up, if he ran away."

"I don't believe it," said Tom Edwards.

"I'm not so sure he wasn't trying to keep me from trying to escape,"

admitted Harvey. "I dare say some of these folks would be glad to see us get away. Let's try that little house over there, through the trees."

He pointed to a house a few rods up on a road that led from the sh.o.r.e, and they proceeded towards it. It was all in darkness, and, indeed, seemed almost deserted. They pa.s.sed in through a half tumbling gateway, with rotting posts on either hand, and Tom Edwards knocked at the door.

There was no answer, and he knocked again. They heard some one stirring within. Presently a chamber window was thrown up, and an old woman poked her head cautiously out.