Tavern
before the horn was blown outside and they hurried to take their places
in the north-bound coach. Along the cobbled streets of the bustling,
red-brick town they rumbled for a few moments, then out upon the smooth
dirt surface of the York Road, where the four good horses were put to a
gallop.

The Delaware, opposite Trenton, was reached by six o'clock, and there
the half-dozen passengers left the coach and were carried across on a
little ferry boat, rowed by an old man and his two sons. They spent the
night at an Inn and next morning early boarded another coach bound
northeast over the sparsely settled hills of New Jersey. The road was
narrow and bad in places, slackening their speed. Twice the horses were
changed, in little hamlets along the way. In the late afternoon they
crossed the marshy flats beyond Newark and just after dusk emerged on
the Jersey side of the Hudson. A few lights glimmered from the low
Manhattan shore. The quaint Dutch-English village which was destined to
grow in two hundred years to be the greatest city in the world, lay
quiet in the gathering dark.

The ferry was just pulling out from shore, but at the sound of the coach
horn it swung back into its slip and waited for the passengers to board.

A gruff Hollander by the name of Peter Houter was the ferryman. He stood
at the clumsy steering-beam, while four stout rowers manned the oars of
his wide, flat-bottomed craft. Approaching the steersman, Bob asked
where in the town he would be likely to find the Captain of a
merchantman then taking cargo in the port. The Dutchman named two
taverns at which visiting seafaring men could commonly be found. One was
the "Three Whales" and the other the "Bull and Fish."

Landing on the Manhattan shore, the boys shouldered their luggage and
trudged by ill-lighted lanes across the island to the East River. As
they advanced along the dock-side, Jeremy distinguished among the
low-roofed houses a small inn before which a great sign swung in the
wind. By the light which flickered through the windows they could make
out three dark monsters painted upon the board, a white tree apparently
growing from the head of each. "The Three Whales," laughed Jeremy, "and
every one a-blowing! Let's go in!"

It was an ill-smelling and dingy room that they entered. A score of men
in rough sailor clothes lounged at the tables or lolled at the bar. Two
pierced tin lanterns shed a faint smoky light over the scene. Bob waited
b