“How about insects of all kinds, from red bugs to ticks?” asked Step Hen, who already had a few fiery spots on his lower limbs, marking the places where some of the former invisible guests had buried themselves, and started to create an intolerable itching and burning that made him scratch frequently, without much alleviation of the trouble.
“Oh! who cares about such small pests as them?” remarked Giraffe, loftily.
“Not much danger, if you select clean moss, Step Hen,” Thad told him; and as the scout-master was himself following the example set by the inventive Giraffe, of course all the others copied after him.
“Misery likes company, they say,” Step Hen was heard to mutter; “and p’raps now to-morrow there’ll be the greatest old scratching bee you ever did see. As I’m in for it anyway, guess I’ll take the chances of mixin’ the breed,” with which he flung prudence to the winds, and started making a collection for himself.
Now, Thad did not mean to neglect any precaution looking to making sure that if a visitor came to the camp during the night, in the shape of a human black thief, he would find it difficult to carry off any of their possessions.
First of all, he paid particular attention to the boats, the paddles of which he himself carried into the middle of the camp, and finally hid away in the tents, so that they could not easily be run across.
Then he had some of the boys assist him, while he ran the two canoes far up on the shore. Even then he secured the painters in such fashion that any one would have great difficulty in unfastening the same.
“I should think that would make us feel secure about our boats, Thad?” Allan remarked, after all this had been carried out with scrupulous care; for the scout-master believed that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well, and he applied this principle to his every-day life, often to his great advantage.
“If we know what’s good for us we want to always guard the boats above all things,” Thad went on to tell them.
“I should say so,” Bumpus admitted; “just think what a nice pickle we’d find ourselves in, fellows, if we suddenly lost both boats while we were right in the middle of the swamp. We could lose lots of things better than them.”