Seeing Thad beckoning, the tall scout stepped over beside him.
“Do you want to do an errand for me, Giraffe?” asked the patrol leader.
“Every time, if only you don’t ask me to walk on the water to the shore, which is a little more than I can manage,” replied the other promptly.
“I’ll tell you about an idea that struck me all of a sudden, as I was sitting on this log here,” announced Thad. “I hardly know what put it in my mind to think of that shanty boat again. Perhaps it was our joshing about what Robinson Crusoe would be likely to do, if he found himself located like we are. But no matter, I suddenly remembered I had meant to examine that boat better, and then it happened that something put it out of my mind.”
“Examine the shanty boat better, do you mean, Thad?”
“Yes. I remembered noticing what looked like a square consisting of plain cracks, on the floor of the cabin. The more I get to thinking of it, Giraffe, the stronger it strikes me that there may be some sort of trap door there. The boat must be hollow, that stands to reason, and if the water could be kept from getting in, such a place would be a good hiding-place.”
“Gee whiz! do you mean for extra grub supplies, or something else, Thad?”
“I was thinking of something else,” came the reply. “You remember how we found supper cooking on the stove when we broke into that boat cabin, yet never a solitary soul around? Well, supposing the man who was doing the cooking heard us when we let out those wild yells, and seeing soldiers coming down on him like wild cats, he just dodged below, and stayed there?”
“You mean all night long, Thad?”
“Yes, right up to the time we left the boat this morning,” the patrol leader went on to say solemnly.