Explore "A Jolly Fellowship" by Frank R. Stockton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The tug-boat was a little thing, and not very clean; but she was strong and sea-worthy, we were told, and therefore we were satisfied. There was a small deck aft, on which Corny and Rectus and I sat, with Celia, the colored woman; and there were some dingy little sleeping-places, which were given up for our benefit. The captain of the tug was a white man, but all the rest, engineer, fireman and hands -- there were five or six in all -- were negroes.
We steamed down the Savannah River in pretty good style, but I was glad when we got out of it, for I was tired of that river. Our plan was to go down the coast and try to find tidings of the boats. They might have reached land at points where the revenue cutters would never have heard from them. When we got out to sea, the water was quite smooth, although there was a swell that rolled us a great deal. The captain said that if it had been rough he would not have come out at all. This sounded rather badly for us, because he might give up the search, if a little storm came on. And besides, if he was afraid of high waves in his tug, what chance could those boats have had?