“How about making a shelter?” asked Giraffe, his woodsman spirit aroused; which remark proved that he must have been pondering over these things while on the way to the upper end of the island and back.
“We were talking that over while you were gone,” said Thad, “and came to the conclusion that while we might try and put up some little cover good enough for one night, which would keep the dew off, even without the use of our ponchos, it would hardly pay us to go to any great trouble.”
“But what if we have to stay out here a long time?” continued Giraffe, whose whole manner told that he would not object in the least, as long as the eating was fairly good; and that the Easter vacation could be indefinitely prolonged so far as he was concerned.
“Well, we don’t intend to, and that’s all there is to it,” Step Hen assured him. “Of course we have to put in one night; but that ought to be all. The river will fall nearly as fast as it rose; and already Thad’s thinking up some scheme that’s going to take us ashore.”
“Any wings to it, Thad?” asked Giraffe laughingly; “or shall we make a balloon, and go flying over Cranford, to make the folks’ eyes stick out of their heads with wondering what those frisky Silver Fox scouts will be doing next, to get themselves in the spotlight?”
“Oh! I haven’t had time enough yet to get to that,” Thad told him; “just give me a chance to sleep over it first. But Step Hen is perfectly right when he says we haven’t the least intention of being cooped up here many days. Besides, unless we do get a move on us pretty soon, we’ll have to turn back home and get ready to go to school, instead of recovering the judge’s treasured army coat for him.”
“School!” repeated Bumpus; “my goodness! is there really such a place? Why, seems to me it’s been an age since I recited a lesson. Just the thought of it makes me feel sad. But if we did have to camp out here for a couple of weeks we’d miss some hunky-dory good times in Cranford. The barn dance comes off next week, you know. And every one of us, I reckon, has promised to take somebody. Oh! we’ve just got to be home before then, Thad. Think what Sadie Bradley’d do if you gave her the mitten; and then how about Giraffe’s roly-poly sister, Polly, Allan; are you ready to forsake her? Perish the thought; the boys of the Silver Fox Patrol never were quitters, were they?”
Giraffe, whatever he may have thought about staying on the island as long as they could stand it, seeing that popular sentiment was against him, showed enough wisdom to quiet down. Possibly he may not have been one-half as bent on such a course himself as he made out; for Giraffe was notoriously shrewd, and fond of playing all manner of jokes.
They lounged around, some of them engaged in accomplishing certain things, but in the main content to lie on their blankets, with a poncho underneath to keep the dampness off. This was on account of the fact that they had been cheated out of considerable sleep lately, and felt the need of it.
Later on Thad commenced to make a bough shelter, with the assistance of several of the others. In summer time this is readily done, but when the leaves are off most of the trees it is not so easy a task.