At that Allan darted outside, despising the scanty rain that was still coming down, though decreasing constantly. Hardly had half a minute elapsed before the scout was back inside again.
“Well, what’s doing?” asked Giraffe impatiently.
“There’s a piece of cable there, all right,” came the reply; “I dragged it out of the water where it’s been ever since we broke away up above. Seems to be a pretty hefty rope, too, even if it did give way under that terrific strain; but for all that, boys, it won’t do.”
“You mean there isn’t enough of it, don’t you, Allan?” asked Thad, who apparently had foreseen just such an answer.
“Lacks many feet of being worth while,” replied the other; “so you see, Smithy, a rope’s something we haven’t got.”
“‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse,’ only in this case it’s a bully old half-inch cable we want most of all,” Giraffe asserted.
“Well, I think we’d better take Thad’s advice, and get our stuff together, so if it comes to a case of jump we’ll be ready to skip out of this,” Bumpus remarked; for he evidently dreaded another siege similar to the last, with the shanty boat whirling down the agitated river, subject to innumerable risks, such as kept one’s heart jumping up toward his throat in a most uncomfortable way, to say the least.
It did not take them long to do this, for besides their haversacks, blankets, guns, and the few cooking utensils they had with them, their possessions did not amount to much.
“How about the stuff aboard the old boat—had we ought to commandeer that?” asked Giraffe, who did dislike to see anything in the shape of food get away from him, when it might just as well be saved.
“I should think we had a right to grab what food there is. It don’t amount to a great deal, and we’d be only too glad to pay for the same if ever we ran across the owner of the tub,” ventured Bumpus, also having an eye to the future, and a strong dislike for the first gnawing of hunger.