They continued to talk as they made slow progress. It was snail-like, after having become accustomed to the ten-mile-an-hour gait of the car, when it was doing its best. Still, no one complained, for half a loaf was a good deal better than no bread.
“I’d a lot sooner be caught in this fix than to stay out there all night, crammed in the car,” remarked Bumpus, and then continuing he said, with a vein of reproach in his mellow voice: “but, Thad, Allan, it wasn’t just right for you to tuck the only wrap we had along around me, like I was a big baby. I’ve got to learn to take my knocks like the rest of you, and I want you to let me meet my share, or else I’ll be unhappy.”
“There, we’re getting close to the village now,” said Giraffe, pointing to where houses could be dimly seen in the misty moonlight.
The hour was pretty late when they hauled up in the inn-yard. The landlord had kept his word, and supper was being cooked even then, a fact Bumpus discovered as soon as he could scent the odors in the air.
“Oh! mebbe I’m not glad you decided to take a horse when you couldn’t get any gas, Giraffe,” he remarked, sniffing vigorously; “now, I wonder what he’s having cooked for us. If it’s as good as the stuff we had at noon I’m going to find out how it’s made. Then some time or other when we’re camping out with the rest of the boys I’ll spring a big surprise on you all.”
“I think that everything considered,” said Thad, “we have reason to be thankful things are no worse. So far as I can see there’s been no damage done; and here’s the landlord coming to tell us supper is ready.”
“Hold on, Bumpus, you forget that you’ve got a game leg, don’t you?” called out Giraffe, as the fat boy jumped to his feet in readiness for a rush.
“Oh! that’s got well again,” Bumpus assured him blandly. “Fact is, the scare I had when I was run away with by that car did the business for that lame leg. But if both of them happened to be crippled that wouldn’t keep me from feeling hungry, would it?”
Since no one had ever known anything to do this of course there was no chance for Giraffe to make any response. The supper turned out to have the same appetizing flavor which Bumpus had so much admired at noon, and after a great deal of effort Giraffe managed to extract the information from the landlord that it was all a little French trick of rubbing a bit of garlic on the pan in which the food was being cooked, and which gave it that flavor.
“I see all sorts of trouble ahead for us scouts,” ventured Giraffe, after he had imparted this information to Bumpus, “if ever he takes to carrying a string of garlic along with him on our hikes.”