At noon they stopped to eat lunch, and give the guides a chance to rest, for the work of pushing up against that current was no child’s play. Although the boys were ready to lend a helping hand, and “spell” the guides from time to time, naturally the brunt of the work fell on Eli, Jim and Sebattis.
“Did any of you hear a gunshot a little while ago?” asked Giraffe, when the boats came together about the middle of the afternoon.
“He keeps on sayin’ he’s sure he did,” broke in Bumpus, who was in the canoe with the tall boy, making “the long and short of it, or both extremes meet,” as Bumpus himself often humorously remarked; “but neither Eli nor I caught it. How about the rest of you?”
“Nothing doing here,” said Step Hen; and all the rest, even the stolid Sebattis, denied having heard anything that sounded like the report of a firearm.
“Which way did it seem to come from, Giraffe?” asked Thad, wondering if after all the other could have caught a faint sound that escaped the vigilance of the three guides; and thinking of Mr. Carson, of course, who was ahead somewhere.
“Oh! about the way we’re goin’ I reckon,” replied Giraffe. “Just seemed to ketch the faintest little boom; but Eli said as how he hadn’t heard nothin’. The wind had died out at the time, but the air was still from the north. I’m right sure it was a gun, even if Bumpus here does say I had an idea, and it was such a new thing it hit me with a bump.”
The afternoon wore away, and the sun set without their having reached their destination.
“Where’s your old and comfy cabin?” demanded Bumpus. “I’m tired of sittin’ here so long, and I guess I’ll never be able to get straightened out again.”
“Huh!” grunted Giraffe, “think of me, will you? Ain’t I near twice as long? Ain’t I twisted up in a knot every which way? My legs took to bendin’ so they’ll knock my knees together; or else look like hoops. How much you got to complain about, you little dumplin’, Bumpus.”
“But Eli says we’re going on, and that we’ll make it not a great while after dark sets in,” Bumpus remarked, scorning to enter into an argument with the other on the subject of whether it paid to be long drawn out, or else shut up in a small compass.