“We ought to have daylight at seven, even on such a bad morning,” remarked Thad, “which would mean about two more hours of it before we can make any sort of a move to get ashore.”
“Two whole hours!” sighed Bumpus, looking as though he feared he would be mashed into a mere pulp by that time.
“Let’s try and forget our troubles,” remarked Giraffe; “suppose, now, Bumpus here could start one of his jolly songs, and we’d all come in heavy on the chorus. That’d be something worth while remembering in future days, when we wanted folks to know how scouts could face trouble bravely.”
“Ugh!” cried Bumpus, starting up, “that makes me think of stories I’ve read how the British crew on the battleship Campertown lined up as she was sinking, and with the band playing went down in the ocean. Do you really think that’s what’s going to happen to us here, Giraffe; and is it a funeral dirge you want me to start?”
“Not a bit of it, but the liveliest song you know, old fellow; so get busy, and it’ll make us feel better all around,” the tall scout assured him.
Bumpus swallowed hard several times, as though not at all sure about his voice, and then he started in. At first there was a decided tremolo noticeable, but as he went on he gained assurance, and presently was doing nobly. When the proper time came for the chorus every one of them joined in, so that the volume of sound must have arisen well above the noise of the rushing waters and the wild blasts of the wind through the leafless trees ashore.
Had anyone by chance been within hearing distance and caught the clamor of boyish voices that swelled forth from the cabin of that shanty boat, drifting down on the bosom of the mighty flood, they might well have been pardoned if they found themselves wondering whether some asylum had yielded up its inmates, the whole thing appeared so remarkable.
Giraffe was right, and Thad, knowing it, had not attempted to raise a hand to prevent the carrying out of the singular compact. That song cheered them up wonderfully indeed; by the time it was ended even Bumpus felt quite sanguine that they were bound to pass through the fresh trial unscathed. He was ready to carry on the good work as long as his voice held out.
So he started a second school song that was familiar to them, and being in better practice now, they all did more justice to the theme.
It was interrupted by the surging boat striking a rock, so that the sudden jar tumbled them in a heap; but upon scrambling to their feet once more the singing was taken up again as though nothing had happened.