CHAPTER XIV.

STILL SURROUNDED BY PERILS.

"We're lucky to be here and not out there on that water," Thad said, in the ear of the stout scout, as he came upon him standing in the lee of the cabin, and looking across the river, which seemed very wide at this point, though probably extremely shallow despite the flood.

"I should say we were," admitted Bumpus, shaking his head. "Looks ugly, doesn't it, with the wind flaws rushing over the water every little way, and making a dark streak with each squall? But don't you think she's still rising, Thad?"

"No doubt about it," he was told. "When I came out here a while ago it stood six inches below that black mark on the rock you can see there, and look what it is now."

"Not more'n three," muttered Bumpus apprehensively; "but, Thad, you don't really think she's going to keep on rising, and that some time the whole island'll be covered, do you?"

Seeing what had been worrying Bumpus, Thad did not do as was Giraffe's usual habit, add to his fears by portentous suggestions. On the contrary he sought to dissipate all such uneasy thoughts by plain common sense.

"That could hardly happen, Bumpus," he told the other plainly; "if you use your eyes you'll see the land keeps on rising as it leaves the water, so that it stands to reason there's quite an elevation about the middle of the island. And as the rain has stopped, with signs of the clouds breaking over in the northwest, I figure that while the river may continue to rise all day, the increase will get less and less, so that by another morning it ought to be back in its regular banks again."

"Well, I'm sure glad to hear you say that, Thad, because, you know, I'm not near as spry as Davy about climbing trees. He's a born monkey, if ever there was one, and likes nothing better than to hang by his toes from a limb fifty feet up. Now, I'd look nice doing that, wouldn't I? So what you tell me eases my mind a whole lot."

"We ought to be feeling thankful we passed through all we did without any serious accident," Thad told him. "This flood may have caught a lot of people not prepared, along the low lands of the river, and I expect to see pig-pens and chicken coops sailing past here to-day."

"Oh! and if we could only lasso some of those coops, why, we might find a few feathered songbirds inside the same, which would be a great addition to our menu while we're marooned on this island," Bumpus suggested gleefully.

"But as we haven't any rope to use as a lariat," Thad told him, "I'm afraid that lovely scheme won't pan out very well. Still, I'm glad to see that you're awake to the necessity of invention. Thinking up things is going to do anyone lots of good, even if there's no practical result."

"But what about the wind, Thad?"

"Still shifting, and going to do the business for this old boat, sooner or later, if it keeps blowing as hard as it is now," the patrol leader replied.

"I was thinking I'd like to be the first to set foot on the island; not that I'm afraid, I hope you'll believe, Thad; but just from a sort of sentimental reason, you know."

"Well, chances are we'll all be doing it pretty soon, Bumpus; so if you really want to, go ahead," Thad told him, keeping a straight face while speaking, but at the same time much amused, for he knew that despite the solemn protest of his companion Bumpus was very uneasy.

Ten minutes later and Giraffe called out:

"Say, what d'ye think, fellows, we've been left in the lurch. Bumpus has deserted us, and is camped ashore right now, spread his blanket out on a log, and is sitting there like the king of the cannibal island. He must have felt the boat getting wobbly, and thought he'd make sure not to be in the last rush when she broke away."

"I told him to go ashore," Thad informed them; "and I guess the rest of us would be wise to follow his example. So get your stuff and come on, the whole lot of you."

"I just hate to leave all that nice dry kindling wood behind me," complained Giraffe, whose specialty was fires of any and all kinds, and who never failed to keep an eye out for a chance to have one started.

"All right, then, there's nothing to hinder you from coming back after it," Thad told him. "Get Step Hen or Davy to lend a hand. If we have to stay on the island for twenty-four hours, more or less, we might as well have all the comforts going, and at that they won't swamp us."

"I'll do that same as sure as you live," asserted the lengthy scout, pleased with the suggestion.

So after they deposited their belongings, together with what they had appropriated from the owner's scanty stock of food, Giraffe spoke up.

"Davy, Thad says you might go back with me and help land something we can make good use of, if the boat should be drifted away."

"What! you don't want the old cracked stove, I hope?" ejaculated Davy, guessing that it must have something to do with cooking, or Giraffe would not be displaying so much eagerness about it.

"What! me carry a stove on shore when I know a dozen ways to cook on a regular camp fire?" cried the tall scout derisively; "well, I should say nothing doing along that line. But we'll have trouble getting dry wood to start things with, and so Thad says we might as well throw all that lot on shore here."

Davy was a reasonable fellow, and he saw the good sense of such a move at once; so he readily agreed to go aboard the abandoned shanty boat with Giraffe, and take possession of the fuel supply.

As the wind carried more or less spray across the exposed place where the boys had landed, it was later on agreed that they would do well to go further ashore. The trees were bare, and there would be no drip, as might have been the case in summertime.

"Makes me think of a gypsy caravan on the tramp!" Step Hen announced, after all of them were on the move, laden down with their various burdens, Giraffe even carrying a small package of extra-fine kindling, with which he meant to start his first fire, and Davy "toting" the old ax.

"But that wind is something fierce when it comes with a rush and a roar," Smithy was saying, as he watched some of the trees swaying under the blast; "I hope now this isn't going to be a case of dodging one peril to hit another. You know there used to be a rock and a whirlpool that the old Grecian mariners dreaded, for if they missed being piled up on Scylla, they had to run the risk of being sucked into Charybdis. We call it 'jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.'"

"Now, whatever are you thinking about, Smithy?" demanded Bumpus, who had been feeling so well satisfied lately that he disliked to hear any dark hints about new perils hovering over their heads.

"We'll keep close by, Smithy, and be ready to grab you if the wind tries to carry you away any old time," Giraffe assured the other scout.

"Oh! it isn't that, Giraffe; I was only wondering if one of those tall trees took a notion to topple over while we were walking underneath it, why, with all these bundles on our backs, we couldn't very well get out of the way in time."

"Whee! that's so!" Bumpus admitted, as he began to turn his head from one side to the other in the endeavor to cover the ground, without thinking that the peril could only come from windward, if it existed at all.

Now, while Thad hardly believed they had anything to fear from this source, he did not think it wise to take unnecessary chances; and even before Smithy voiced his sentiments the patrol leader was so shaping his course as to avoid every tree that had a suspicious look.

"The one thing that keeps bothering me, outside of our limited stock of provisions, which is always a serious matter," Giraffe broke in at that moment, "is the fact that all our fine tracking work counts for nothing."

"I reckon, suh, you mean that we're bound to lose the object of our chase?" remarked Bob White.

"Why, yes, the hobo with the old blue army coat is going to get such a start on us, before we escape from this river trap, that we never will be able to run him down. I'm sorry as anything, too, because I was hoping another big scoop was headed our way. Now, we'll have to go home like so many dogs, with their tails between their legs."

"Speak for yourself, Giraffe," declared Allan, "because none of the rest of us feel a bit that way. We've done the best we could, and no one is responsible when they run counter to a storm like the one we've struck."

"Besides," added Thad, who did not like the way the tall scout talked, "nobody but the judge really knows a thing about our chase of that hobo who got the old army coat from Mrs. Whittaker; and if we fail to recover the same he isn't the one to give it away. So we can say we had a great hike, got caught in a flood, and let it go at that. But all the same I don't give up hopes of finding this Wandering George yet."

"Which I'm glad to hear you say, suh," Bob White admitted. "There's nothing like a sticker in my estimation; and I can well remember plenty of times when holding out to the bitter end brought victory along."

"Oh! we've all got a touch of that in our makeup, Bob," Giraffe told him; "even Bumpus here can be as obstinate as a mule when he chooses. Just yesterday I was trying to coax him to give me that fine new waterproof match safe he carries, and d'ye know he actually refused me three separate times."

"Oh! yes," commented Bumpus, hearing this, "you make me think of the Irishman on the jury who, when they were discharged for failing to agree, upon being asked how it happened, said there were _eleven_ of the most pig-headed obstinate men on that jury he ever saw, and that try as hard as he could they refused to come around to his way of thinking. If the shoe fits, Giraffe, put it on."

Giraffe laughed just as loud as any of them, for he could at least enjoy a joke that was aimed at himself, which was one of his best qualities.

The ground did seem to rise more or less the further they got away from the northern end of the island, just as Thad had told Bumpus when the latter member of the marooned patrol was expressing his fears of being overwhelmed in the advancing flood.

Now and then they had glimpses of the river, and somehow they felt an irresistible temptation to gaze out over the wind-swept water whenever the opportunity arose.

"Just look at that squall coming across, would you?" ejaculated Bumpus; "why, it is scooping the water up, and throwing it around like mist. Ain't I glad we're on solid ground right now? And wait till it strikes the shore. Let me tell you it's a good thing this island's firmly anchored, or it'd be blown away. Hold tight to your hats, fellows, I warn you!"

There was a sudden swoop, and a mighty roar, as the squall broke among the trees around them. When there came a startling crash the scouts huddled together and stared in the direction of the sound, being just in time to see one of the tallest trees come toppling over, with a roar that seemed to shake the ground beneath their very feet.