With the very shadow of the great Liberty statue stretching over them, their good ship was fast on the rocks and threatening to spring a leak any moment. Shipwreck at the gates of America’s greatest city stared the boys in the face. Sand bars, ice, great waves, and fierce winds, had been encountered, but not till New York Harbor received them so inhospitably, had the “Gazelle’s” keel struck rock.
Quick work was necessary if the yacht was to be saved, for even now the rollers from passing steamboats were causing her to pound.
Without a word, Kenneth jumped forward and lowered jib and mainsail, and then, without stopping to take off any clothes, sprang overboard. “Come on, boys,” he cried. In another instant all three were lifting and pushing the heavy hull to get her off the rocks into the deep water of the channel—straining with all their might. Hot work it was, in spite of the cool water that wet them above their waists. Reluctantly the yacht began to slide backward. Lifted by the rollers, and pushed by three sturdy backs, she slipped towards the channel till the boys found themselves without a footing and hanging on the boat for support. She was afloat once more.
“Thank God!” said Ransom fervently, as he climbed on deck, dripping and shivering in the chill morning air. Once more the good ship had stood the test.
A few minutes were spent in putting on dry clothes, then on up New York Bay they went.
All was plain sailing until the yacht’s straight bowsprit had poked itself round old Fort William Henry on Governor’s Island. Then the fun began.
The two great currents from the North and East Rivers met off the fort, each carried an immense number of craft of all sorts going in every direction. Whistles tooted and bells clanged, paddlewheels and churning propellers turned the green waters into frothing chaos.
Kenneth and his friends were bewildered, and they wondered how they were ever going to pilot the diminutive “Gazelle” through that intricate labyrinth of shifting vessels.
The monster “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” her huge hull dragged by several tugs (reminding one of a big piece of bread being moved off by ants) blocked the way to starboard; while one of the swift Sandy Hook boats dashed by to port, leaving a great wave astern. The Long Island Sound boats, veritable floating hotels, were just rounding the Battery on the way to their piers ahead, and to and fro the tug-boats puffed on erratic courses; shuttles they were that seemed to be weaving a net from which the yacht could not escape.
“Phew!” whistled Kenneth, who was steering. “How the deuce are we going to get through this, I would like to know?”
“I don’t see, unless we sink and we go underneath.” Arthur’s brows were puckered with perplexity, curious to see, but perfectly simple to understand.
“I don’t know how, but we always do get out of our scrapes somehow; still—Well, will you look at that, in the name of common sense!” Frank stopped from sheer astonishment.
The yacht was speeding down a narrow lane between two great outgoing ships, a great schooner and an English tramp, her way clear for once, when a tug appeared across the opening, and at the end of a long tow-line, a half-dozen canal boats strung out—a barrier six hundred yards long at least. Kenneth trimmed in his sheets quickly, put his helm to starboard, and started to go around the end of the tow, but no sooner had the yacht gathered headway in the new direction, than a big ferryboat ran from behind the tramp, and she had to luff quickly to avoid a collision.
“This is getting tiresome, to say the least,” remarked Kenneth in a vexed tone. “I guess we’ll have to follow Arthur’s suggestion and make a submarine trip of it.”
“Look at that sloop there; she goes right along and the steam craft get out of her way.” Arthur pointed out a well-loaded oyster boat. “If we only had our nerve with us we’d be all right.”
“It takes nerve, though; but here goes, we have the right of way.”
Sure enough. Whenever there seemed to be no escape from an accident, and the yacht pluckily pushed on, the steam vessels shifted to one side ever so slightly and allowed her to pass.
At first the excitement was too great for comfort, but as they proceeded up the river unharmed, it began to be exhilarating. Great ferryboats crossed their bows so near that they could almost jump aboard; tugs steamed by so close that the crews of the two boats easily “passed the time o’ day” in an ordinary tone of voice. Huge steamers passed that might have stowed the “Gazelle” on one of their decks without inconveniencing their promenading passengers in the slightest.
“And yet,” said Frank, bending his head far back in order to see a steamer’s rail, “this little boat weathered some storms that would make even that vast hull tremble.” He voiced the thought that all of them had in mind.
With eyes bright with interest, the boys saw the graceful sweep of the Brooklyn Bridge, the tall, red, square tower of the Produce Exchange, the brownstone spire of historic Trinity Church set in the midst of, and almost dwarfed by, the higher buildings about it. Towering ten, twenty, thirty stories high, the great office buildings made a skyline strangely jagged and bold. As the yacht sailed northward, the city flattened out somewhat, and the moving network made by the wakes of the shifting boats became more open.
Off Seventy-second Street, at the beginning of Riverside Drive, the anchor was dropped, and now out of the stream of passing craft, the crew stopped to take a quiet breath and recover from the excitement of navigating a great waterway full of swiftly moving vessels of every nationality going to and from every part of the world.
A week of sightseeing followed. Now, perhaps, for the first time, the boys longed for money with a longing not born of need, but at the sight of the many attractive things that can be bought for small sums, and the interesting shows which their empty pockets did not permit them to enjoy. Of the free shows, hardly one escaped them, the museums, both of Art and Natural History, the New York Zoo in Bronx Park; then the great buildings and the public parks all received their share of attention. Though comparisons may be odious, the boys put the Natural History and Metropolitan Art museums beside the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago, and discussed hotly among themselves the relative merits of each.
“His Nibs” was a hard-worked boat those days, because from four to six times a day it ferried the boys to and from the yacht. Perhaps it was owing to the fact that it was tired of so much work, that it floated itself into the attention of a couple of young wharf rats one evening. Kenneth had come ashore alone, and made the small boat fast to the landing close to the shore end of a long, closely built wharf. For perhaps three hours he was away, and when he returned it was after eleven o’clock and black night. Reaching the landing, he saw that the boat was missing, and his heart sank, for he had an affection for the little craft that had done its work so bravely; besides which, he could ill afford the money to replace it. Suddenly he awoke to the fact that just beyond his sight, a boat was being rowed hurriedly away. Running down the stringpiece to the end of the pier, he saw two young reprobates paddling off with all their might in “His Nibs.” What should he do? Not a policeman in sight, not a boat in which he could follow, near at hand; he feared he would have to let his boat be taken before his very eyes. But all at once a thought struck him and the humor of it made him smile as he started to put it into operation. With a big clasp knife he carried in his pocket he thought that he might bluff the thieves into thinking that it was a revolver, and so scare them into returning the stolen property.
Running out to the end of the pier, where his figure would be silhouetted against the distant light, he pulled out his knife, and holding it as if it were a revolver, pointed it at the “wharf rats.”
“Where are you going with that boat?” he shouted in stern tones.
No answer, though the thieves stopped rowing.
“You return that boat or I’ll—” Kenneth left his sentence unfinished, but he flourished his impromptu revolver so fiercely that the boat stealers were evidently cowed.
“Get that boat back, and be quick about it. No fooling, or I’ll shoot you full of holes.” Kenneth could hardly keep his face straight when he saw them back water and turn to go back to the landing. “I was just in time,” he said to himself, as he followed along on the stringpiece. “If they ever got under a dock it would be all day with ‘His Nibs.’” Arriving at the float the boys (they were hardly out of their ’teens, Kenneth thought) started for the street on a run. Ransom stayed not for pursuit, but jumped into the boat and pushed off. Once the two stopped to look back, but a threatening move with the knife sent them on with renewed speed.
“Well, that’s the best joke,” Kenneth said to himself, and he stopped rowing to pat the pocket where he had dropped the knife.
September 14th broke bright and clear, with a touch of the keen autumnal vigor in the air. A good strong breeze was blowing, and the boys weighed anchor with light hearts, for they were beginning the last fifteen hundred miles of their seven-thousand mile journey. On, up the Hudson River, the good yacht sped, the smooth green lawns of Riverside Park on one side, and the frowning cliffs of Jersey Heights upon the other. Soon the dome of Grant’s Tomb was passed, dazzling white and gleaming in the morning sun.
Hour after hour the little boat sailed up the majestic stream, a mere moving mote on the broad watery ribbon. To the east, the land sloped gently to the stream, an undulating green country dotted here and there with towns and clumps of factory buildings. On the western shore, the giant Palisades stood bluff and impressive, a solid stone wall from two hundred to five hundred feet high and fifteen miles long.
The boys speedily became mere animated exclamation points, for hardly a minute passed that did not disclose some new beauty, some unexpected vista.
The breeze held fair all day, and the night being clear, the young navigators sailed on till long after sundown. The close attention and long day’s sail made captain and crew very tired, so that when they turned in rather late they slept like logs.
At seven o’clock next morning all aboard were as thoroughly at home in the land of Nod as if they intended to spend the rest of their days there. Old Sol was shining brightly ov............