“Then I go, do I, Thad?” asked Giraffe, looking actually pleased at the chance to make himself “useful as well as ornamental,” as he himself called it.
“Yes, if you will,” he was told; “we’ll promise to stay here and watch the car, though it’d be hard for any one to steal it without a bit of petrol in the tank to run the engine. Take your time, Giraffe; no need of sprinting. If you can’t get the gasoline, bring a horse and a driver.”
“We’re not so very proud!” laughed Bumpus.
“It’ll only be another experience,” ventured Allan; being boys they could grapple with troubles without being greatly discouraged, for as is often the case they saw something of a frolic in each successive adventure, something to be remembered and retold later on with more or less pride.
“While you’re away, Giraffe,” continued Thad, “we’ll see if we can mend the hole in the petrol tank. I believe I saw a little soldering outfit in the kit of tools. Just as like as not this isn’t the first rust hole that’s happened in that same old tank. If we can’t do it, some plumber will have to undertake the job, for we can’t go ahead otherwise.”
So Giraffe walked on, taking great strides with those long legs of his. Bumpus, who being so stout only made mincing steps, always declared Giraffe must have inherited the famous Seven League Boots they used to read about in the fairy story books.
Giraffe waved his hand back to his comrades before turning a bend, and that was the last they saw of him on his mission for help.
Thad and Allan were soon busily engaged. They made a little fire close by, where the small soldering iron could be heated. Bumpus having asked if he could be of any assistance, and being told to the contrary, solaced himself by sitting there and watching all they did.
“No telling but what I might want to mend a hole in a coffee pot some of these fine days,” he remarked, complacently, “and it’s just as well that I learn how to handle the tools. I believe in a scout’s knowing things every time”; then as though his conscience suddenly smote him he hurriedly added: “but once in a while you may run up against a snag, like I did when I fooled with that driving wheel. Think you c’n fix it, Thad?”
“It begins to look that way, Bumpus,” the other told him; “we seem to be making some progress, anyway.”