“Well, you get me there,” returned the other. “I never saw one doing the same; but seems to me I have heard of such a thing. They can do nearly anything, and so swimming may be on their list. I only hope the old chap don’t take a notion to clear out of here before I get a crack at him, that’s all.”
“I was only going to say that we might capture the old grunter, and hitch him to a log on which the whole lot of us perched, making him tow the same ashore.”
Of course Giraffe understood Davy was only joking when he said this, but he chose to pretend to take it seriously.
“If you leave it to me to choose, Davy,” he went on to say gravely, “I’d prefer to have those hams and the bacon, and take my chances of paddling ashore afterward. Besides, I don’t believe we’ve got anything to make harness out of, so your great scheme would fall kind of flat. Give that bunch of bushes another whack with your club while you’re about it, will you? We want to clear up things as we go along, so we’ll know the job’s been done gilt-edged.”
“Looks like that’s an open place ahead, Giraffe,” ventured Davy, after he had complied with the request, and found nothing.
“Yes, it does seem that way, Davy, and p’r’aps now we’ll have a chance to look around a bit when we strike it. I was just wondering whether the river could have been up over all this island any old time in the past, and here’s the evidence of the same.”
He pointed to what looked like drift stuff caught in the crotch of a tree. It may have been lodged there years back, but anyone with observation could readily see that it had been carried to its present location by a moving current.
“As true as anything, Giraffe, and there must have been three feet of water over the highest ground on the island then. Lucky the rain stopped when it did, or we might be perched in trees right at this minute.”
“That’s what Thad was saying, when he told us it was never so bad but what it might be a whole lot worse. Think of the bunch of us being compelled to roost in trees day and night, till somebody came along in a motorboat and rescued us. Well, for one, I’m glad things didn’t get quite that bad.”
As they drew closer to the open spot they could see the other scouts advancing on their right, and covering the ground. They exchanged signals, and in this way learned that nothing had thus far been seen of those for whom they were searching.