CHAPTER XV.
STILL BUMPING BUMPUS.
Various were the expressions of disgust when the scouts heard this piece of intelligence from the guide.
“Well, what d’ye think of that now, for a piece of nerve?” exclaimed Step Hen.
“Seems just like this here Ricky, whose first name must be Gin, I reckon, thinks he owns pretty much all Alligator Swamp, because he’s held out here so long, and nobody ever bothered him before!” Bumpus lamented.
“But what’s the use talking that way, fellows?” said Giraffe, almost fiercely; “none of us expect to clear out just because Mr. Ricky says we’ve got to go. If he expects that he’s given us the worst scare of our lives, he’s got another think acoming to him, that’s all.”
“Giraffe, you never spoke truer words than that,” cried Davy Jones, suddenly firing up, and showing unexpected zeal in the matter; he had a way of stretching his eyes when under any sort of excitement, and in this way made the other boys laugh at his looks; but just then, somehow, no one even smiled, for they were too much taken up with the seriousness of the conditions confronting them.
“Well, it strikes me about the same way,” spoke up Bob White, with his customary Southern eagerness, “the Silver Fox Patrol has gone through with too many adventures in its time to get scared off, just because one old moonshiner chances to feel ugly that we’ve had to come into this swamp.”
“He’d better take care,” warned Smithy, who seemed fully as much worked up as any of the rest of them; “or we might make up our minds to kill two birds with one stone.”
“That’s what!” echoed Bumpus, aggressively; “while we’re alooking up this here Felix, why, if we’re forced to show our hand without a glove, p’raps we’ll take a notion to pull old Ricky in, and hand him over to the revenue officers. Maybe there might be some sort of reward out for him; and we’ve made our expenses before now in helping the hands of justice. Remember what we did up in Maine, boys?”
“Yes, and please move our boat a little to the right, will you, Allan, because somehow I think the air comes a mite finer from that quarter,” and Giraffe as he said this almost glared at Bumpus; who returned his look with one of pretended indifference, as he fondly stroked his dingy old khaki jacket that was so discolored from long and hard use that one could hardly tell what the original color may have been.