If we had only remembered that, three or four of us could have gone ashore with a rope and tied her in the channel, which ran along the near shore.

Then all we would have had to do would have been to sit around and wait for it to turn, so we could drift up to Bridgeboro with it.
But just when we were floating out of the creek, we forgot all about what the tide would do to us, unless we were on the job and sure enough it caught us and sent us whirling around and away over on to the flats.
"Good night!" I said when I heard her scrape.
"We should have had sense enough to know the tide is stronger here than in the creek," they all said.
"What's the difference ?" Dorry Benton said, "We're stuck on the flats, that's all.

Now we don't have to bother to tie her.

When the tide changes, we'll float off and go on upstream all right.

We're just as well off as if we were tied up in the channel." Well, I guess he was right except for what happened pretty soon.