“Guess I can see through a board that’s got a knot-hole in it, Giraffe Stedman!” he exclaimed, bitterly. “Fact of the matter is, you’re just jealous of my figger, that’s what, and all the while you lie awake nights atrying to think up schemes that’ll make me have trouble, and in the end reduce my flesh so fast that you won’t be the only living skeleton in the bunch. Right now you want to make me paddle all by myself; and there ain’t anything calculated to thin a fellow more’n that kind of business. Thad, don’t you see what he’s after? And I certainly do hope you won’t let him crow over me. I’m losing enough weight as it is, aworrying over that silly job of not remembering what I did with my mother’s medicine she sent me to fetch home; let alone having to paddle ever and ever so many weary miles. Tell him to get in Tom Smith’s canoe himself, and go on ahead, if so be he thinks he’s going to feel any better. You ain’t once complained about my dear old suit, Thad, neither has Step Hen here.”
“Well, go slow about me there, Bumpus,” spoke up the last mentioned party; “for you see my cold’s agetting just a little bit better; and seems to me at times I do notice something queer about the air of this swamp. Tell you more later on, if I keep improving like I am.”
“That’ll be enough for you, Giraffe,” said Thad, with an assumption of authority that announced his belief that the time for levity was past; “we’ll not bother about such a little thing right now; but wait until we get in camp after we’ve settled the matter of the man and the girl. Let’s move along.”
“Little thing—huh!” grunted Davy, while Giraffe and Bumpus exchanged grins, the one being founded on triumph, in that Thad had decided in his favor, while the elongated scout showed that he had only been jesting after all, though pretending to be so serious.
The guide had listened to all this side talk, and seemed to be more or less amused, though like as not he failed to catch the true essence of the joke. But he had already grown to like these quick-witted lads more than a little, and was trying hard to enter into their way of looking at things.
He paddled on slowly, always keeping a bright lookout ahead and around. Giraffe took occasion to remark, after noticing how careful the swamp hunter seemed to be, that according to his notion Tom Smith was half expecting to hear that rifle of the moonshiner bark again.
“Whee!” Bumpus was heard to say, half to himself; and they noticed that after that the fat scout managed to squat a little lower in his place, doubtless thinking it the part of discretion to make himself less of a shining mark, calculated to draw the attention of any would-be marksman.
Not that Bumpus would have acknowledged feeling afraid; but he might have declared that he did not see why he should loom up there like a target, while lucky fellows like Giraffe, who were as thin as a knife blade, stood little chance of being hit.
All went smoothly for some little time, and as no ugly sound like the report of a gun annoyed them, the scouts began to get their full amount of courage back again. But Bumpus apparently found his new position of lolling in the bottom of the bow of the canoe comfortable enough to please him, for he made no attempt to sit up pompously again, as had been his habit before.
The guide had kept just a little in the van, and presently he turned to beckon, as though desirous of having them join him; which those in the other two boats immediately did.