"That's where you're wrong," chuckled Step Hen; "they trouble him a whole lot, every time he sits down, I reckon, because Nature ain't been so kind to our long friend as to you, Bumpus."
Joking in this style they finished their meal, and the afternoon stared them in the face. It promised to be a long stretch, if they had to stay there until another morning.
Bumpus and Giraffe presently got their lines out, and finding a place near by where it seemed safe to remain, they started to try and add to their score.
"Let's call it off, Bumpus," suggested Giraffe, who was getting weary. "What's the use of all this bother, when we've got a storehouse cram-full of fine fresh fish close at hand, so we sure don't need this sort of a job for the sake of filling our stomachs. Anyhow, you can keep it up if you feel like it; I'm dead sleepy after passing such a night; and we ought to get some rest."
"That's so," echoed Bumpus, just as if he had been on guard every minute of the previous night, "and as like as not we'll have to be keeping one eye open to-night again, who knows?"
"One?" cried Giraffe, looking sharply at him; and then shaking his head he went on to add: "but I said I wasn't agoing to poke fun at you this whole day, Bumpus, after what you done. Course you can't help it if you get sleepy, any more'n I can about being hungry all the time. So let's call it a draw, and quit kidding."
"What's that smoke over there mean?" asked Step Hen, a short time later; and even Giraffe, who was trying to get some sleep, sat up on hearing this.
"Hurrah! mebbe it's a rescue boat coming out after us!" cried Davy, standing on his hands, and kicking his heels in the air, just as the ordinary boy might clap his hands together.
"What do you say, Thad?" asked Giraffe, cautiously, having arisen to his feet, and stretched his long neck in the endeavor to see better than his chums.
"Well," remarked the scout-master, after he had made a mental calculation; "you notice, don't you, that it comes from toward the other end of the island."