CHAPTER IX.

“COMBING” THE SWAMP LABYRINTH.

“Oh! you can’t fool me that way, Giraffe!” chuckled Bumpus. “I may look green, but things ain’t always what they seem. Thunder, eh? And this is mighty near the end of December, too. Try again, Giraffe.”

“Yes, but don’t forget, Bumpus, where you are,” cautioned Thad. “This country in winter time can have anything we expect only in summer up North, and that stands for thunderstorms any month in the year. There, that was a louder peal; and now you’ll understand we’re not trying to make you swallow a tough yarn.”

“It sure did sound like it,” admitted the fat scout, “but I never thought we’d run up against a thunderstorm, or I’d have fetched my new raincoat along.”

“Goodness knows you did bring more than your share, as it is,” complained Step Hen. “You ought to have a boat all to yourself, because the rest of us don’t get a chance for our lives. But I say, Thad, do we stand for a ducking?”

“If I could see a chance to go ashore I’d say we might get the tents up, and hold over till the storm had passed by,” the scout-master replied.

“That’s where it’s agoing to be hard,” ventured Giraffe; “because right now there don’t seem to be a piece of ground as big as a postage stamp in sight; nothing but the fat butts of these here old cypresses, and low-hanging vines around. Reckon we must just stand for wet jackets, boys.”

“Wait, don’t give it up so easily,” said Thad. “Pull over to where those vines hang low, and see if you can’t manage to fasten your tent up in some sort of style, so that it’ll hang over the boat, and keep the rain off.”

“But how about the wind, won’t that blow her every which way?” asked Bob White.

“You’ll find precious little wind with this rain,” Thad assured him, “because it is so thick in the swamp here that we’ll be protected. You may hear it humming in the cypress tops, but hardly a ripple below.”

“Hurrah! that’s the ticket, then!” cried Bumpus, who did dislike to get wet more than almost anything; yet who often managed to stumble, and fall into lakes and duck ponds in a way that was most exasperating. “Anyhow, if the worst does come, I’ve got my old duds on.”

“Yes, we know you have, sure we do, Bumpus,” Davy made sure to call out, as his face took on an expression of pain that made Giraffe laugh; for just then the latter being in the other boat, was separated from Thad’s craft by a dozen yards of water, and to windward at the same time.

It was found that the plan proposed by Thad was possible of execution. Happily the vines came down low enough for the boys to secure the tents in such a way that they could be spread out, and thus cover most all the boats’ surface.

“This is what I call a boss scheme,” Giraffe was heard to call out, from under the dun-colored canvas that was wobbling violently, as the boys made out to secure the ends the best they could, and in this way hold the boats steady.

“Did you ever know Thad to think up one that wasn’t the best going?” demanded Smithy; who was really the latest recruit in the patrol, though he had learned a great many things since joining, and long ago ceased to merit the opprobrious title of “greenhorn” or “tenderfoot.”

“Listen! I think I hear the rain!” called out Thad, more to break in upon this flattering line of talk than because it was necessary to draw attention to the pattering of the drops upon the canvas covers.

“That’s right; and I tell you we didn’t get fixed any too soon, fellows!” Bumpus exclaimed, as he snuggled down in comfort, holding on to his share of the tent as though half expecting, despite the reassuring words of Thad, to presently feel the same violently torn from his clutch by the gale unless he fastened to it with the tenacity of a bull terrier.

Inside of three minutes the rain was coming down heavily, while the thunder proceeded to crash with all the vim of a real summer storm up home.

“One good thing,” declared Giraffe, between outbursts, and when the rain seemed to let up a little, “we don’t have to depend on the walking any; and after it’s all over we can go right ahead as well as ever.”

“Mebbe it’ll raise the swamp level some,” advanced Step Hen, “and we won’t be apt to run on the mud banks, like we did more’n a few times.”

“Getting lighter all the while, boys; and I guess she’ll soon quit!” Giraffe went on to remark; and they all agreed with him.

“Did anybody get wet?” asked Allan, when it seemed as though the storm had passed over, and was rumbling away in the dim distance, having gone to the northeast.

“Nary a drop!” Bumpus triumphantly declared.

“Huh! there might be fellows mean enough to wish somebody _had_ gone and got soaked through and through; for then he’d have to bring out his new suit, and wear the same,” Davy growled.

Bumpus was seen to be glaring suspiciously at the speaker when the wet tent was taken down in the most careful manner possible.

“I really believe you wouldn’t care a red cent, Davy Jones,” he said, sternly, “if I happened to make a bad step, and walked overboard. Fact is, I’m agoing to keep my eye on you after this. Like to have me get my old suit wet, would you, so I’d just _have_ to make the change; well, I wouldn’t put it past you to give me a little shove, or trip me up, so I’d take a header. Better take care, because there’s a limit to my good nature. Some fellows can be coaxed to do nearly anything, but they object to being driven.”

“Listen to him talk, would you?” cried Davy, pretending to be hurt by the accusation of the other, though there was a gleam in his eyes that told he had been given an idea by Bumpus’ remark. “You make me think of the traveler that the sun and the wind picked out as a victim, to see which was the stronger. He had a cloak on, and the one that managed to get it off was to be the victor. So the wind tried as hard as anything, but the traveler only wrapped his cloak tighter around him. Then the sun got hotter’n hotter, till he just couldn’t hardly breathe; so what does he do but throw away his cloak; and of course the sun won, hands down.”

“Chestnut!” gibed Giraffe, from the other boat; “ten to one even six suns couldn’t force Bumpus to shed his coat when once he’d made up his mind to keep it on. Just like that stubborn will of his, it grows stronger and stronger all the time.”

“Yes,” added Davy, “and every little while you can see him sitting by the fire, with his chin held in his hand and a far-away look in his eyes; and then you know he’s cracking his poor brain trying to remember what happened to that five cents’ worth of medicine he can’t remember what he did with.”

“Didn’t I tell you again and again that the money part don’t enter into this matter at all?” demanded Bumpus. “It’s just because I was so wretchedly careless, that it keeps wearing on my mind. I ought to know what I did with that stuff; and I’m bound to figure it out, or bust a boiler atrying. Didn’t Thad tell us that was a good trait in a scout? Ain’t being determined what every good scout ought to try’n practice? Didn’t he tell us about how the hungry wolf over in Siberia will set out on the track of a deer in the snow, and keep everlastingly after him, even if the chase seems silly to begin with; but nearly every time he’ll get his game before he quits, just by his pertinacity. That’s what I am, one of the stick-at-it kind.”

“You never said truer words, Bumpus!” coughed Davy, toward the stern of the boat, “some things are like a rolling snowball, they keep on getting bigger’n bigger the longer they exist. But every dog has his day, and we live in hopes that something’ll happen to make you change your mind about that same coat.”

When the tents had been squeezed as dry as possible, the forward progress was resumed, all of them feeling rather light-hearted over the clever way in which they had cheated the storm. It always gives a boy a sense of superiority to feel that he has come out first best in a battle with Nature.

Some of the scouts doubtless began to wonder how they were ever going to locate the man and the girl, deep in the gloomy recesses of Alligator Swamp; but those who kept their wits about them, and watched what Thad was doing, must have ere this come to the conclusion that he had not been wandering aimlessly about all this time, but on the contrary had some definite plan of campaign in view, which he kept constantly following.

In fact, Thad was on the alert for any sort of sign that would tell him some other boat had been in the habit of passing along through these channels. Allan at times called his attention to certain indications along those lines. And it was in the hope that this other boat might be the one containing the man and the girl, whose presence here had drawn him from his faraway Northern home, that Thad continued to pursue his set course.

As the afternoon began to wear away, after they had partaken of a light cold lunch that was not at all satisfactory to Giraffe, who declared at its close he was nearly starved, all of them began to keep a bright look-out for some decent sort of dry land where they might camp for the coming night.

“Because,” said Smithy, who liked plenty of room, “it would be manifestly next to impossible for four fellows to stretch out comfortably in such a narrow craft as this canoe,”—Smithy always liked to use big words, and was moreover very precise in his mode of speech, but a pretty good fellow all the same, a great change having come over him since he took up being a scout, and ceased to cater to his former “sissy” weaknesses along the line of extreme “dudishness,” as Giraffe always called it.

“Well, I should say, yes,” burst forth Davy Jones; “if you think you’d have a bad time, just cast your eye over this way and tell me what’d become of us, once Bumpus started stretching himself out all over the boat. When he’s sitting up it’s bad enough, but lying down would make the situation er—er——”

“Intolerable, I suppose you mean, Davy,” supplemented Smithy, promptly.

“Yes, in more ways than one it would be,” declared the Jones boy, darkly.

“Well, don’t worry,” Bumpus told him, calmly; “because right now I guess Thad’s got his eye on a real nice camp site, if that grin on his face stands for anything, and I think it does. How about it, Mr. Scout-master; have you struck solid land?”

“I see a place ahead that looks kind of good to me,” Thad replied; “but because lots of things don’t happen to turn out as well as they promise, we’ll have to wait till we get there before we’ll know for sure. And as we’re all tired of prowling around in this way for one day, I think we’ll hold up, providing the chance comes along.”

“Even half a chance, Thad,” urged Davy, hurriedly; “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers, my ma always says, when I begin to hesitate about taking something that’s offered. Half a loaf’s some better’n no bread. And as for me, I’m fairly _wild_ to get out and stretch my weary limbs, and also mingle with my other pards.”

“Other pards, huh!” sniffed Bumpus, who knew very well that this was intended as another little fling at him, though it failed to make even a dent in his resolution not to give in to the requests of these complaining fellows.

They were soon alongside the patch of high ground discovered by Thad; and when they found that it offered a splendid site for a dry camp, all of them were pleased. The way they proceeded to tumble out of the boats told that their limbs had been more or less cramped by sitting so long, for as many as seven hours had elapsed since they embarked.

In spite of the time that had been spent in pushing along, they could not have made as great progress as might be expected; for on numerous occasions Thad was compelled to admit that he had taken a false channel; after which they had to go back over their course, destroying the marks that had been left, so they might not later on mislead them again, until a new start could be made.

First of all they jumped up and down on the land, and performed all manner of gymnastic feats, with the object of getting out the “kinks,” as Giraffe explained it. Davy Jones was up a tree like a flash, and swinging there as jauntily as any Borneo gorilla could have done; in fact the Jones boy never seemed so happy as when he could hang with his head down, and his toes caught on a branch. If he chanced to slip, he was as agile as a cat, and would clutch some new hold. They say that it is seldom a squirrel misses connections when jumping from one tree to another; and surely no boy ever came nearer to being a human squirrel than did Davy Jones.

“Now, if you’ve got limbered up enough,” said Thad presently, “come and help me get the duffel ashore, so we can look after the boats, as usual.”

Everybody was willing, and many hands make light work, so the tents and all other things came ashore at a lively rate.

Thad had just thrown down a package he had been carrying, when he was seen to stand and look down at it critically, and then shake his head, as though trying to figure something out.

“What ails you, Thad?” called out Giraffe, who happened to be near by, and noticed this queer action on the part of the scout-master. “I hope, now, we haven’t been and lost anything?” for Giraffe was always in fear lest the food supply be cut short.

“No, but perhaps there’s a chance we may,” replied the other, with a grin.

“You don’t say; and what might it be?” demanded Davy, becoming interested.

“Why, a sudden idea struck me, that’s all,” replied Thad. “To tell you the truth fellows, perhaps you’ve been treating our chum Bumpus shamefully all the while, in accusing him as you have of wearing clothes that are greasy and loud; because I’ve got a notion that I’ve located the source of this bad odor we’ve been suffering from two whole days and nights.”