Square and Compasses by Oliver Optic

Dory Dornwood reached the wharf too late to prevent the ruffians from getting off in the boats; and his failure filled him with consternation. It was not for a few minutes, as Tom Topover had said, that the ruffians wanted them, but for all day, or for a week or a month, if they were not sooner taken from them. Living on the river and near the lake, such fellows would naturally take to the water, and all or most of them knew how to handle an oar, but not one of them could be called a skilful boatman, though Kidd Digfield claimed to be a sailor on the ground that he had made two trips in a lumber schooner.

Even if the Topovers were competent to handle a common row-boat, it was quite another thing to manage a barge fifty feet long, pulled by twelve oars. If they succeeded in getting the boats out of the river, they were likely to swamp them in the waves, smash them on the rocks, or grind their cedar bottoms on the gravelly beaches. Dory had a genuine affection for the Winooski, and it grieved him sorely to see her in the hands of such a villainous crew as the Topovers.