"Hello! yourself; what d'ye want?"
"Bring that boat ashore, and be quick about it!" the deep grumble proceeded to tell them; and somehow poor Bumpus was forcibly reminded of the growl of a lion he had once heard in a menagerie, as well as several other things along the same "away down in the cellar" line.
"I suppose we might as well do it, fellows?" Thad remarked to his chums, in somewhat of a low tone; as though he meant to be influenced more or less by what decision the other scouts reached.
"Oh! can't we skip out before they get their hands on us, Thad?" Bumpus wanted to know. "We're full twenty feet and more away from the shore, and it'd take a champion sprinter and jumper to cover that distance."
"Yes, but how about running out into that storm again, eh, Bumpus? Feel like going through another experience like that?" demanded Giraffe.
"Not any for me, thank you. Thad, I say, do what he tells us. He can't eat us, I reckon; and we ain't got any reason to be afraid because of anything we've done."
"Same here, Thad," remarked Davy, quickly: he had been feeling very much like backing up Bumpus in his request, but what Giraffe said caused him to "take water" instantly, and Davy was as quick to make a revolution in his mind as his body could revolve in several handsprings over the ground, when he was feeling good.
"Allan, how about you?" asked Thad, feeling that much depended on what the one addressed thought.
"No help for it, Thad; we've got to throw up our hands that far, anyway; because, like as not they've got us covered right now with their guns, and while they can see us fairly well, everything all dark to us up there."
"Oh! my stars!" Bumpus was heard to whisper to himself, in a horrified tone, as he learned about those terrible firearms that must be held with their muzzles projecting in the direction of the floating home of the scouts; but all the same Bumpus, "though good and scared," as he afterwards candidly confessed, did not attempt to lie down, and shield his round body behind any of his comrades; if they could take the consequences surely he ought to be ready to face the music; and so he only knelt there and quivered and looked, momentarily to see a flash, and hear a deafening report that would stagger them all.