“But that wind is something fierce when it comes with a rush and a roar,” Smithy was saying, as he watched some of the trees swaying under the blast; “I hope now this isn’t going to be a case of dodging one peril to hit another. You know there used to be a rock and a whirlpool that the old Grecian mariners dreaded, for if they missed being piled up on Scylla, they had to run the risk of being sucked into Charybdis. We call it ‘jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.’”
“Now, whatever are you thinking about, Smithy?” demanded Bumpus, who had been feeling so well satisfied lately that he disliked to hear any dark hints about new perils hovering over their heads.
“We’ll keep close by, Smithy, and be ready to grab you if the wind tries to carry you away any old time,” Giraffe assured the other scout.
“Oh! it isn’t that, Giraffe; I was only wondering if one of those tall trees took a notion to topple over while we were walking underneath it, why, with all these bundles on our backs, we couldn’t very well get out of the way in time.”
“Whee! that’s so!” Bumpus admitted, as he began to turn his head from one side to the other in the endeavor to cover the ground, without thinking that the peril could only come from windward, if it existed at all.
Now, while Thad hardly believed they had anything to fear from this source, he did not think it wise to take unnecessary chances; and even before Smithy voiced his sentiments the patrol leader was so shaping his course as to avoid every tree that had a suspicious look.
“The one thing that keeps bothering me, outside of our limited stock of provisions, which is always a serious matter,” Giraffe broke in at that moment, “is the fact that all our fine tracking work counts for nothing.”
“I reckon, suh, you mean that we’re bound to lose the object of our chase?” remarked Bob White.
“Why, yes, the hobo with the old blue army coat is going to get such a start on us, before we escape from this river trap, that we never will be able to run him down. I’m sorry as anything, too, because I was hoping another big scoop was headed our way. Now, we’ll have to go home like so many dogs, with their tails between their legs.”
“Speak for yourself, Giraffe,” declared Allan, “because none of the rest of us feel a bit that way. We’ve done the best we could, and no one is responsible when they run counter to a storm like the one we’ve struck.”