“I just hate to leave all that nice dry kindling wood behind me,” complained Giraffe, whose specialty was fires of any and all kinds, and who never failed to keep an eye out for a chance to have one started.
“All right, then, there’s nothing to hinder you from coming back after it,” Thad told him. “Get Step Hen or Davy to lend a hand. If we have to stay on the island for twenty-four hours, more or less, we might as well have all the comforts going, and at that they won’t swamp us.”
“I’ll do that same as sure as you live,” asserted the lengthy scout, pleased with the suggestion.
So after they deposited their belongings, together with what they had appropriated from the owner’s scanty stock of food, Giraffe spoke up.
“Davy, Thad says you might go back with me and help land something we can make good use of, if the boat should be drifted away.”
“What! you don’t want the old cracked stove, I hope?” ejaculated Davy, guessing that it must have something to do with cooking, or Giraffe would not be displaying so much eagerness about it.
“What! me carry a stove on shore when I know a dozen ways to cook on a regular camp fire?” cried the tall scout derisively; “well, I should say nothing doing along that line. But we’ll have trouble getting dry wood to start things with, and so Thad says we might as well throw all that lot on shore here.”
Davy was a reasonable fellow, and he saw the good sense of such a move at once; so he readily agreed to go aboard the abandoned shanty boat with Giraffe, and take possession of the fuel supply.
As the wind carried more or less spray across the exposed place where the boys had landed, it was later on agreed that they would do well to go further ashore. The trees were bare, and there would be no drip, as might have been the case in summertime.
“Makes me think of a gypsy caravan on the tramp!” Step Hen announced, after all of them were on the move, laden down with their various burdens, Giraffe even carrying a small package of extra-fine kindling, with which he meant to start his first fire, and Davy “toting” the old ax.