CHAPTER XXII
THE LONG NIGHT
"Good for you, Giraffe!" exclaimed Bumpus, ready to seize upon the idea without stopping to examine the same in order to find out whether or not it were possible to carry it out.
"It ain't half bad," admitted Step Hen.
"But how about starting to sea in this blow?" asked Allan, quietly, after he and Thad had exchanged winks.
"Oh! hang the luck, I clean forgot all about that!" admitted the tall scout, his smile of triumph disappearing immediately.
"Whew! I should say we couldn't!" Bumpus hastened to add, showing that it was possible for a boy to change his opinion almost as speedily as a shift of wind causes the weather vane to turn around, and point toward a new quarter.
"And," added Thad, "that will all have to be left to the morning, anyway. If we should find a half-way chance to do something along those lines, why, we'll gladly give Giraffe the credit for thinking up the scheme. But it's time we settled down for the night now; so let's fix our blankets and be as comfy as we can, even if we do expect to keep awake."
"And don't you think it'd be a good plan, Thad," suggested Step Hen, "to always keep that gun in evidence? If we could make them believe we all of us carried the same kind of weapons, we'd be more apt to see sun-up without any trouble happening; and that's what I think."
"Well, now, there's some meat in that idea of yours, Step Hen," the scout-master told him; "and it wouldn't be a bad scheme for those who have clubs, to carry them more or less this way under your arm, just as you would your gun if tramping, or on a hunt. In the firelight they may think that's what they are, and the effect will be worth something to us, as you say."