ne
of the fellows seemed to think it was strange that he should be willing to
run away from home, and yet be so anxious to keep his promise to his
mother that he would not use a pistol to defend himself from robbers; and
none of them seemed to think it was strange that they should not want
Piccolo, if he hooked his father's boat, to travel on Sunday with it.

After a while Piccolo came to the little hatch-door, and looked down into
the cabin where the boys were sitting and talking at the tops of their
voices; but in about a minute he vanished, very suddenly for him, and they
heard him pumping, and then before they knew it, they heard a loud, harsh
voice shouting, "Heigh, there!"

They looked round, and at the open window of the cabin on the land-side
they saw a man's face, and it seemed to fill the whole window. They knew
it must be Piccolo's father, and they just swarmed up the gangway all in a
bunch. Some of them fell, but these hung on to the rest, somehow, and they
all got to the deck of the cabin together, and began jumping ashore, so
that Piccolo's father could not catch them. He was standing on the basin
bank, saying something, but they did not know what, and they did not stop
to ask, and they began to run every which way.

They all got safely ashore, except Jim Leonard; he fell over the side of
the boat between it and the bank, but he scrambled up out of the water
like lightning, and ran after the rest. He was pretty long-legged, and he
soon caught up, but he was just raining water from his clothes, and it
made the fellows laugh so that they could hardly run, to hear him swish
when he jolted along. They did not know what to do exactly, till one of
them said they ought to go down to the river and go in swimming, and they
could wring Jim Leonard's clothes out, and lay them on the shore to dry,
and stay in long enough to let them dry. That was what they did, and they
ran round through the backs of the gardens and the orchards, and through
the alleys, and climbed fences, so that nobody could see them. The day was
pretty hot, and by the time they got to the river they were all sweating,
so that Jim's clothes were not much damper than the others. He had nothing
but a shirt and trousers on, anyway.

After that they did not try to get Piccolo to hook his father's boat, for
they said that his father might get after them any time, and he would have
a right to do anything he pleased to them, if he caught them. They could