“Joke?” burst out the other in a vociferous voice; “let me tell you, this is a mighty serious matter; and if it keeps along, some of us in desperation may be tempted to jump on you while you sleep, and make the change ourselves. We’re getting to a point where self-preservation is the first law of Nature.”
“Bah! who’s afraid?” retorted Bumpus, with a shrug of his plump shoulders; “but you want to keep your hands off me, for I’ll kick and bite like fun if set on. I know you’re just trying to see if you can’t convince me against my own good sense. This atmosphere seems all right to me; though I admit I don’t just like the looks of this black swamp water, and the ooze we meet up with sometimes.”
Giraffe gave him a last piercing look; then as if making up his mind that the case was utterly hopeless, he shook his head and turned away; while Bumpus went back to his camp duties as blithely as though care sat lightly on his head.
After they had finished breakfast the tents were struck, folded in as small a compass as possible, and one stowed away in each of the boats. Afterwards they cleaned up the camp, and made sure that nothing worth while was left.
There had been certain portions of the razorback that they did not mean to take along with them. Seeing Bumpus busily engaged Thad approached, asking:
“What are you up to here, old fellow? Just as I thought, trying to do a little favor for that wretch of a three-fingered coon, by tying up this meat where the animals will have a hard time getting at it. Yes, you guessed right that time, for the chances are he’ll come back here as soon as he knows we’ve gone, in the hopes of picking up some scraps we’ve tossed aside. Bumpus, you’re improving, because that shows you figured it all out, and hit the bull’s-eye in the bargain.”
The fat scout looked immensely pleased to hear Thad talk in this strain.
“Well, after eating such a jolly breakfast myself, it struck me as pretty sad we should be so near a miserable human being who was almost starved. No matter if he is a bad man, and deserves all he’s getting, he’s made like us, and I just reckon the lot of us would be quite as tough as he is if we’d never had the benefit of a nice home and education and full stomachs. And so I thought, as he’d be likely to come here, I’d save these pieces from the cats and skunks for him.”
“It sure does your big heart credit, Bumpus, and that is the way a true scout ought to feel pretty much all the time,” Thad went on to say, looking affectionately at his stout chum. “Now, if he only gets here soon enough, there’ll be red ashes in the bed of our fire, and he can start it up again, so as to do his cooking.”
“Oh!” said Bumpus, with a happy gurgle, “I thought all that out, too, Thad. See, here in this paper is half of my matches. I can spare ’em easy enough; and every one will be worth a heap to him, I guess.”