The Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island Part 5

"And we ain't goin' to have to swim for it then?" Step Hen went on.

"Not unless you feel like taking a bath," replied Thad asked.

"But what happened to our engine?" asked Davy.

"And will we have to pole, or row, the rest of the trip?" proceeded Giraffe. "I see our finish if that comes around so early in the cruise.

Wow! me to hike through the woods afoot, when it hits a fellow as hard as this."

"Me too!" sighed Step Hen.

"Oh! don't get excited, boys," remarked Thad, with a broad smile; "no danger of anything like that happening to us just yet. I was half expecting something along these lines to happen; and now that it has, we'll fix that part for keeps. It won't come around again, I promise you that."

"Which isn't saying something else won't," grumbled Giraffe. "The blame old tub is just about ready to go to pieces on us, the first chance she gets; and that's what I think."

"Not so bad as that, Giraffe," remonstrated Thad. "This engine has been a great one in its day."

"Yes, but that day was about away, back in the time of Stephenson,"

continued the tall scout, who, once he began to complain, could only be shut off with the greatest difficulty.

Everybody seemed to laugh at that, it was so ridiculous; but as Thad was already busily engaged in examining the engine their spirits seemed to rise a little.

"Hey! ain't anybody agoin' to help me in?" piped up a small voice just then, accompanied by a splashing sound.

The boys exchanged looks, and then followed nods, as though like a flash they saw the chance to play something of a Joke on the comrade who was thus appealing for aid.

"h.e.l.lo! where's the other fellow?" exclaimed Allan, as though he had counted noses, and found one missing.

"That's so, where can he be?" echoed Thad.

"Who's missing?" Thad, went on to say.

"Bob White was only here we'd have him call the toll and find out.

There used to be six kids the bunch."

"It must be b.u.mpus!" declared Giraffe, solemnly.

"You're right!" said a spluttering voice from some unseen place.

"The poor old silly thing, he just jumped right over into the water without saying Jack Robinson!" Step Hen observed, in such a sad voice you would have thought he was having the tears streaming down his cheeks, when in truth there was a wide grin settled there.

"Oh! then he must surely be drowned," Davy went on to add, in a voice that seemed to be choking with emotion--of some sort.

"I thought I saw the lake rising, and that accounts for it," ventured Step Hen. "When a fellow as big as our poor chum goes down, he displaces just an equal part of water. However will we tell his folks the sad news?"

"Ain't you nearly done all that stuff?" demanded an impatient voice, and there was a rocking motion to the boat; after which a very red face surmounted by a shock of fiery hair, now well plastered down, hove in sight. "Hey! somebody get a move on, and give me a hand. I'm soaked through and through, and I tell you my clothes weigh nigh on three tons."

The five boys pretended to be hardly able to believe their eyes. They threw up their hands, and stared hard at the apparition.

"Why, sure, I believe it's our long lost chum, b.u.mpus!" gasped Giraffe.

"Mebbe it's his ghost come back to haunt us the rest o' out lives.

Mebbe we better knock him on the head; they say that's the only sure way to settle spooks," and as Step Hen said this terrible thing, he started to pick up the long-handled boat book.

"No, you don't, Step Hen!" shrilled b.u.mpus, who was really frightened as long as he remained in the water, for he believed it must be a mile deep so far out from land. "You just put that pole down, and get hold of my arm here. I tell you I'm tired of being in soak so long, and I want to come aboard so's to get some dry duds on. Make 'em behave, Thad, can't you? I'm getting weak holding on here all this while; and pretty soon I'll have to let go. Then there will be a ghost, sure, to haunt this crowd. Ain't you coming to a.s.sist a fellow scout in distress?"

Realizing that the joke had gone far enough the scout-master himself sprang forward to give poor b.u.mpus the a.s.sistance he craved.

There was no lack of help after that, Step Hen even made use of the boat hook to take hold of some part of the wet scout's clothes; and with a mighty "heave-o!" they dragged him, puffing, and shedding gallons of water, on to the deck of the stalled power-boat. Here he lay for a minute or two "to drain," as Giraffe remarked, but soon feeling chilled, b.u.mpus began to hunt for his clothes-bag in order to get something dry to put on.

As he did not have a complete outfit for a change, the other fellows helped out; but while his soaked khaki suit was drying, hanging here and there so the sun could do the business, the fat scout presented a laughable appearance, since of course none of the things that had been so generously loaned him began to fit his stout figure.

However, since b.u.mpus was by nature a jolly chap, he quickly saw the humor of the thing. This was after he had become warmed up fairly well, when he could sit and watch those who were tinkering with the broken engine, and tell what his feelings were as he sprang so hurriedly over into the big lake.

It made him shiver, though, to look around at that sea of water, and realize what an exceedingly reckless boy he had been.

"Next time anything happens, me to stick to the old boat, even if I go up a mile high in the air!" he declared, raising his right hand solemnly, as though taking a vow.

"Have your wings ready, b.u.mpus, and you'll be all right, because you can fly," said Giraffe; and that provoked another laugh; because b.u.mpus, once upon a time, being very ambitious to learn how to swim, had purchased a pair of those "White Wings," which are simply bags made of waterproof cloth that can be inflated, and used after the manner of life preservers; so that he had had heaps of fun poked at him on account of his "wings."

So a full hour pa.s.sed.

Some of the boys were growing impatient, and to relieve the monotony, Thad managed to call the attention of Giraffe to the fact that it lacked only ten minutes of high noon.

That was enough.

"I thought I was feeling pretty weak!" ex-claimed the tall scout, rubbing his stomach sympathetically, "and no wonder, with breakfast so far back I've even clean forgot what I had. Come along, boys, let's get busy with lunch."

"The rest of you can attend to that," said Thad, satisfied that his plan had worked; "and by the time you are ready to call us, we'll have this job all done, so we can start her going."

That was cheering news, and the rest immediately set to work with a will. There was a little stove aboard that used gasoline for fuel, and with this it seemed as though they ought to be able to do all the cooking they wanted when away from land. Of course should they have the opportunity, they meant to go ash.o.r.e many times, and have one of the old-fashioned camp-fires, around which they had sat so many times in the past, when on their outings.

Before long the smell of cooking that filled the air told that the laborers were making a success of the warm lunch business. b.u.mpus in particular seemed fairly wild for things to get done.

"I tell you, I just can't seem to get any warmth inside me," he complained when Step Hen took him to task for showing such unusual impatience. "That water was as cold as Greenland, and went right through me. I want my coffee, and I know when I want it."

"Guess your being so badly scared had a heap to do with it," remarked Giraffe.

"Perhaps so, Giraffe," replied the fat scout, meekly; "I admit that I was frightened out of a year's growth, because I once dreamed I was burned in just such an accident as a boat taking fire. But how about you, Giraffe? The first time my head came up above the coming of the deck I saw your face, and say, talk to me about a gravestone being white, that wasn't anything alongside your phiz."

"You don't say!" jeered the tall scout, though he looked conscious of the fact that his face was now as red as a beet.

"And chances are that you didn't jump the same way I did because you were scared so bad you just couldn't move a finger," b.u.mpus went on, seeing his advantage.

"Thad!" called out Giraffe, scorning to pay attention to the thrust.

"All right!" answered the other.

"Lunch ready!" Giraffe went on to say.