“But it happens to be just what we were hoping to find,” Jack continued, looking quite pleased at the loneliness of the spot; “small chance of any of those crackers coming in this direction, when they have no business here. I reckon Wally, you’ll be able to have that jolly campfire your heart’s so set on, without its getting us into any trouble.”
“Huh! that all tickles me right smart, Boss,” chuckled the other, rapidly conquering that sensation bordering on awe, and beginning to look at things in a more sensible light. “Kinder gu—reckons as haow there might be mebbe a ’gator or so in sech a slimy place as this same—that is, if sech critters do live as fur north as this South Carolina swampy region; anyhaow I ain’t agwine to take chances awadin’ in them nasty waters, where I kin see snakes aswimmin’, and pokin’ their heads aout to larn what in Sam Hill done drapped daown in their private park. Gee whiz! this is ’baout as cheerful a hole as the gateway to the Lower Regions, if yeou asked me what I thought, suh.”
They soon discovered that they were not to be allowed to take things as easy as Perk may have anticipated; for presently both were employed shooing swarms of voracious mosquitoes from their exposed faces and hands.
CHAPTER XIX
The Lonely Camp
“Perhaps,” suggested Jack, tiring of this exercise after a while, “it might be just as well for us to step ashore, so you can get that fire going. A little smoke would be worth while as a smudge to drive these skeets away; they’re bent on eating us alive, it seems to me.”
“Jest as yeou sez. Mister,” Perk acquiesced, with alacrity; and in less than three minutes he had managed to jump ashore from the end of the wing that rested on a log close to the bank of the bayou.
Gathering some loose wood he quickly had a blaze going, and was joined by his comrade, who took particular pains to stand to leeward of the fire, so that clouds of thick smoke would cause the fierce insects to abandon the vicinity.
“I suppose that, generally speaking,” Jack went on to say, “we would be hunting dry wood so as to send up as little smoke as possible, for fear of attracting notice, and bringing unwelcome visitors to our camp; but in this case the chance of detection plays a very small part in the game. We certainly need lots of pungent smoke in order to drive these hordes of nippers away. So go to it, partner, the more the merrier.”
Later on they sat down where the wind would waft some of the smoke in their direction, and being at peace with the world just then found that they could compare notes, and reach certain conclusions.
Although the sun was still quite some little distance above the horizon, as they figured, (being unable to see anything through that mass of cypress, and hanging moss) it was already commencing to grow dusk back of the camouflaged airship.