“I’ll get out first, if ever you do!” vowed Giraffe; “I don’t care to be splashed up against a wall, or hoisted twenty feet up in the branches of a tree, to hang there with my head down. And I don’t think Thad’s reckless enough to take chances with such a green driver. Bad enough as it is, with a wobbly car.”
Bumpus did not answer, but there was an aggrieved look on his round face, which would indicate he did not agree with Giraffe at all, and still considered that he might be trusted.
The sun, being well up, was beginning to prove pretty warm, so that it was not surprising to hear Giraffe express a desire for a cool drink.
“Since such things as road-houses seem to be as scarce as hens’ teeth along here, and you can’t expect to get any soda or sarsaparilla, suppose we keep an eye out for a spring, and call a halt to water our dusty throats?”
Everybody seemed willing, and Bumpus even went to the trouble to produce an old well-battered tin cup he had picked up somewhere, as he remarked:
“And if you do run across a spring, Giraffe, please fetch me that full of nice cold water, will you? My leg still pains me, and I’d better not get out. I hate to give any one trouble, but it’s a case of necessity. Get your fill first, and fetch mine when you come back to the car. You were always a good friend of mine, Giraffe.”
“No trouble at all,” the other told him; “but first catch your rabbit before you start cooking the same. We have yet to find the spring. Here, stop making such faces, Bumpus; I know your throat is full of dust, but you can’t hurry things that way, for even two swallows don’t make a spring!”
Bumpus pretended to feel faint after hearing that, but recovered almost magically upon hearing Thad say he believed he saw what they were looking for up ahead.
“These Belgian country people are always thinking of others,” he said, “and they mark a spring near the road with a white stone so passers-by can know it.”
“Yes,” added Allan, “and ten chances to one we’ll find it as neat as wax, with some sort of a clean mug to drink out of.”