The boys exchanged looks, and then followed nods, as though like a flash they saw the chance to play something of a Joke on the comrade who was thus appealing for aid.
"Hello! where's the other fellow?" exclaimed Allan, as though he had counted noses, and found one missing.
"That's so, where can he be?" echoed Thad.
"Who's missing?" Thad, went on to say.
"Bob White was only here we'd have him call the toll and find out.
There used to be six kids the bunch."
"It must be Bumpus!" declared Giraffe, solemnly.
"You're right!" said a spluttering voice from some unseen place.
"The poor old silly thing, he just jumped right over into the water without saying Jack Robinson!" Step Hen observed, in such a sad voice you would have thought he was having the tears streaming down his cheeks, when in truth there was a wide grin settled there.
"Oh! then he must surely be drowned," Davy went on to add, in a voice that seemed to be choking with emotion—of some sort.
"I thought I saw the lake rising, and that accounts for it," ventured Step Hen. "When a fellow as big as our poor chum goes down, he displaces just an equal part of water. However will we tell his folks the sad news?"