“Say, Thad, don’t you remember what I told you last night, when the rest were making so much noise, and I was dead sure I heard a shout?” interrupted Davy, with considerable excitement.
“Is that so?” demanded Giraffe; “well, that might have been the time he landed here, and discovering that we wore uniforms, he was afraid to break in, so like as not he just hung around and watched us, till he got a chance to sneak all our bully grub.”
“Thad, you haven’t told us what you think yet,” remarked Smithy, who had been listening to all this excited talk, and hearing so many wonderful suggestions made that he was quite bewildered; “did this tramp fly over here; was he washed up on the island by the flood; or did he find himself castaway on some floating cabin, and manage to get ashore by good luck?”
Thad must have been using his head to some advantage during this time, for he appeared to have made up his mind decisively.
“To tell you the truth,” he remarked, “I don’t take any stock in either the flying scheme or the one that brings in a floating hencoop or cabin to account for Wandering George’s being here. I feel pretty sure he came on board a boat.”
“Is that so, Thad?” Giraffe went on to remark; “what kind of a boat would you say it was, now?”
“Oh! something in the shape of a shanty-boat!” continued the other.
“You mean like the one that brought us here?” demanded Step Hen.
“The same one!” Thad shot back, with an emphasis that staggered his hearers, since all sorts of exclamations burst from their lips.
“Thad, do you really mean that?”