“Goodness knows you did bring more than your share, as it is,” complained Step Hen. “You ought to have a boat all to yourself, because the rest of us don’t get a chance for our lives. But I say, Thad, do we stand for a ducking?”
“If I could see a chance to go ashore I’d say we might get the tents up, and hold over till the storm had passed by,” the scout-master replied.
“That’s where it’s agoing to be hard,” ventured Giraffe; “because right now there don’t seem to be a piece of ground as big as a postage stamp in sight; nothing but the fat butts of these here old cypresses, and low-hanging vines around. Reckon we must just stand for wet jackets, boys.”
“Wait, don’t give it up so easily,” said Thad. “Pull over to where those vines hang low, and see if you can’t manage to fasten your tent up in some sort of style, so that it’ll hang over the boat, and keep the rain off.”
“But how about the wind, won’t that blow her every which way?” asked Bob White.
“You’ll find precious little wind with this rain,” Thad assured him, “because it is so thick in the swamp here that we’ll be protected. You may hear it humming in the cypress tops, but hardly a ripple below.”
“Hurrah! that’s the ticket, then!” cried Bumpus, who did dislike to get wet more than almost anything; yet who often managed to stumble, and fall into lakes and duck ponds in a way that was most exasperating. “Anyhow, if the worst does come, I’ve got my old duds on.”
“Yes, we know you have, sure we do, Bumpus,” Davy made sure to call out, as his face took on an expression of pain that made Giraffe laugh; for just then the latter being in the other boat, was separated from Thad’s craft by a dozen yards of water, and to windward at the same time.
It was found that the plan proposed by Thad was possible of execution. Happily the vines came down low enough for the boys to secure the tents in such a way that they could be spread out, and thus cover most all the boats’ surface.
“This is what I call a boss scheme,” Giraffe was heard to call out, from under the dun-colored canvas that was wobbling violently, as the boys made out to secure the ends the best they could, and in this way hold the boats steady.