CHAPTER XVI.

WHAT DAVY HEARD.

"You guessed right, Thad!" said Giraffe, looking toward the patrol leader.

"About what?" demanded Step Hen.

"Why, that it'd be dangerous for us to try and stick to the old bug of a shanty boat, with all that wind blowing," came the reply.

"Has she gone, Giraffe?" demanded Thad quickly, and the other nodded eagerly.

"Cleaned out, as sure as anything, and not a sign of her around, as far as I could see," he went on to explain.

"Then it must have been the great big blast that set her adrift," Davy added, doing his best to explain the mystery. "It was enough to whip her off the shore, with the water rising all the while. Well, that settles it for us."

"How does it, Davy?" pleaded Bumpus.

"I mean we're Crusoes at last, and the last link binding us to our beloved home is swept away," the other continued, for the especial benefit of Bumpus, who was apt to take things too literally.

"Enough of that, Davy," Thad broke in with; "you know we didn't take so much stock in that clumsy boat, after all. It's true we did talk about cutting some long setting-poles, and trying to make the shore when the water went down, but there will be other ways to reach the mainland when we're ready, never you fear. Tell us about it, Giraffe."

"Why, I took my time about getting there, you see, because I knew there wasn't any need of hurrying, as we couldn't do a thing to-day. Besides, Thad, I wanted to look around a little on the way, and find out if there was any sort of game on _our_ little island. Well, there is, and I reckon, what with our guns and snares, we could keep ourselves from starving to death for a long while."

"Good!" muttered Bumpus, as though that important statement removed a certain dreadful fear that may have been haunting him for quite some time.

"Yes," continued the other scout glibly, "I saw two rabbits at different times, and a number of nut-crackers of the gray order, fine big chaps too, that would make a fine squirrel stew, let me tell you. They must have come out here at some time in the summer, when the water was awful low, and this island connected with the main shore on one side by an isthmus."

"That's the explanation, I expect," assented Allan, who was always very much interested in all things concerning wild animal migration.

"But about the boat, Giraffe?" reminded Thad.

"Oh! yes, that's so. I started in to tell you how I found out she was gone from that point where we left her a while back, didn't I? Well, after I got to the place where you come right out of the woods and sight the point I began to rub my eyes, because I couldn't believe I was seeing straight, for there wasn't any boat on that shore at all, not the first sign of one. Of course I knew right away what had happened, and that it must have been the extra big squall coming out of the northwest that had driven her off."

"Then you hurried back to bring us the news, didn't you?" continued Thad.

"Say, I just _flew_, because I thought the sooner you knew about it the better. And so we're prisoners on the island now, without any kind of a boat to take us off. We may have to wade or swim after the tide goes down again."

"I don't suppose you stopped to take a look, and see if there were any tracks around?" the patrol leader continued.

"Tracks--what of, the keel of the shanty boat?" asked Giraffe. "Oh! the splash of the water would have washed all those out easy, so what was the use? We know she's gone, and that covers the whole bill. By now, what with that wind and current, if she hasn't been stove in on some rock, the shanty boat must be five or ten miles down the river, and booming along, all the while spinning around like a top. Whee! I'm tickled to death to know I'm not aboard her right now."

"So say we all of us!" roared several of the scouts in unison, showing how they felt about the matter.

"How about making a shelter?" asked Giraffe, his woodsman spirit aroused; which remark proved that he must have been pondering over these things while on the way to the upper end of the island and back.

"We were talking that over while you were gone," said Thad, "and came to the conclusion that while we might try and put up some little cover good enough for one night, which would keep the dew off, even without the use of our ponchos, it would hardly pay us to go to any great trouble."

"But what if we have to stay out here a long time?" continued Giraffe, whose whole manner told that he would not object in the least, as long as the eating was fairly good; and that the Easter vacation could be indefinitely prolonged so far as he was concerned.

"Well, we don't intend to, and that's all there is to it," Step Hen assured him. "Of course we have to put in one night; but that ought to be all. The river will fall nearly as fast as it rose; and already Thad's thinking up some scheme that's going to take us ashore."

"Any wings to it, Thad?" asked Giraffe laughingly; "or shall we make a balloon, and go flying over Cranford, to make the folks' eyes stick out of their heads with wondering what those frisky Silver Fox scouts will be doing next, to get themselves in the spotlight?"

"Oh! I haven't had time enough yet to get to that," Thad told him; "just give me a chance to sleep over it first. But Step Hen is perfectly right when he says we haven't the least intention of being cooped up here many days. Besides, unless we do get a move on us pretty soon, we'll have to turn back home and get ready to go to school, instead of recovering the judge's treasured army coat for him."

"School!" repeated Bumpus; "my goodness! is there really such a place? Why, seems to me it's been an _age_ since I recited a lesson. Just the thought of it makes me feel sad. But if we did have to camp out here for a couple of weeks we'd miss some hunky-dory good times in Cranford. The barn dance comes off next week, you know. And every one of us, I reckon, has promised to take somebody. Oh! we've just got to be home before then, Thad. Think what Sadie Bradley'd do if you gave her the mitten; and then how about Giraffe's roly-poly sister, Polly, Allan; are you ready to forsake her? Perish the thought; the boys of the Silver Fox Patrol never were quitters, were they?"

Giraffe, whatever he may have thought about staying on the island as long as they could stand it, seeing that popular sentiment was against him, showed enough wisdom to quiet down. Possibly he may not have been one-half as bent on such a course himself as he made out; for Giraffe was notoriously shrewd, and fond of playing all manner of jokes.

They lounged around, some of them engaged in accomplishing certain things, but in the main content to lie on their blankets, with a poncho underneath to keep the dampness off. This was on account of the fact that they had been cheated out of considerable sleep lately, and felt the need of it.

Later on Thad commenced to make a bough shelter, with the assistance of several of the others. In summer time this is readily done, but when the leaves are off most of the trees it is not so easy a task.

By selecting hemlock and other trees that would afford a dense covering they managed by degrees to build up quite a shelter, under which they might lie without running much risk of being wet by the dews. And after the recent heavy storm all of the weather prophets seemed fully agreed that the air had surely been cleared, so that another rain was not apt to come along for some time at least.

Noon came and went.

They cooked a warm meal, thus reducing the amount of provisions on hand; but the result was worth all the sacrifice, Giraffe and Bumpus declared, as they lay on the ground afterward, hardly able to move on account of the full dinner of which they had partaken.

"Three more meals like that, and then the deluge!" said Giraffe; "but who cares for expenses? Gimme two cents' worth of gingersnaps, as the country boy said when he wanted the girls in the store to see what a high roller he could be. If our plans turn out O. K. we hope to be where we can buy a dinner for hard cash by that time. No need of worrying any; keep a doin' the smile-that-won't-come-off business. We belong to the Little Sunshine Club, don't we, boys?"

Most of them were there in the bunch, and as usual all trying to talk at once. Davy alone sat off to one side, and seemed to be trying to shut out the chatter, while he wrote in his private log book an account of their recent adventures.

"How did the grits go, Bob?" asked Bumpus, who, in order to please the Southern boy, had prepared a kettle of fine hominy, to which the other had certainly done full justice, if his three helpings counted for anything.

"Simply immense, suh, and no mistake about it," came the hearty reply; "some of you wonder how it is every Southerner loves that good old dish, and I confess that I'm unable to supply the explanation. I only know it fo' a fact; and that somehow they all say it seems to bring befo' their minds' eye a picture of hanging moss, orange trees, cotton in the field, magnolias in bloom on the green trees, and all sorts of other things connected with the South they love."

"I don't think there's a part of this Union one-half so fond of their section of the country as you Southerners are, Bob," Allan asserted.

"I reckon you're about right, suh, when you say that. It's always been that way with us befo' the war and since. But Davy's beckoning to you, Thad."

"Well, I declare, what do you think of that for pure nerve?" muttered Giraffe, as he saw the scout in question crooking his finger, and nodding to the patrol leader, as though asking him to come over; "if the mountain won't come to Mahomet, he has to go to the mountain. But whatever d'ye imagine ails Davy now? He don't look sick, and in need of medicine, because he ate nearly as big a dinner as--well, as Bumpus here did."

"Speak for yourself, John Alden," retorted the stout boy scornfully.

Thad understood that Davy wished to say something privately, and on this account he did not hesitate to get up and move over to where the other was sitting with his log book in his hand.

He saw that Davy had a puzzled expression on his face, and from this judged he had run across some sort of enigma which he wanted the patrol leader to help him solve. As Thad was accustomed to this sort of thing, he did not think it strange, though naturally feeling some curiosity concerning the matter.

"Want to see me, Davy?" he asked, as he carelessly dropped alongside the other.

"Why, we're all here, ain't we, Thad, the whole patrol I mean?" Davy began.

"Count noses, and you'll find there are just eight of us, which covers the bill," Thad told him.

"While you-all were talking there did you hear anything queer?" continued Davy.

"Not that could be noticed," Thad told him. "There were times when the boys made so much noise that it was hard for me to hear anything besides. Did you catch any suspicious sound, Davy?"

The other immediately nodded, and went on to say, at the same time casting a quick look all around him:

"Thad, I sure did. I was sitting here writing, and paying no attention to what the fellows were squabbling about, when all at once it came, as plain as anything, and right from over yonder," with which he pointed across the island.

"Was it the bark of a dog, the mewing of a cat, the bray of a donkey, or the neighing of a horse, Davy?" asked Thad, smiling.

"Nixey, not any of those, Thad," replied the other solemnly; "but as sure as I'm sitting here it sounded like a shout in a human voice!"