“Oh! I know lots of other places where the berries are just about as thick as off there,” asserted Eddie Grant, who, having undertaken a task, however unpleasant, never wished to relinquish it.
“Who’s afraid?” demanded Cub Mannis.
Of course, after all this manifestation of valor no one dared hint at stopping work just because there chanced to be an escaped gorilla loose on Bass Island.
“We can arrange to keep closer together after this,” suggested Eddie, “and have a signal to close up in a bunch if the old critter bobs up again. But like as not we happened on his private preserves when we tackled that batch of berries, and he ain’t goin’ to bother us if we keep away.”
It was natural that the boys remained in a nervous frame of mind during the remainder of that morning. If a bird flew up suddenly, or a branch scraped against the trunk of a tree, emitting a harsh sound, some of them were sure to take in a long breath and stare around uneasily.
The pails were slow in filling up, too, on account of this vigilance and of the fact that the pickers stuck close together. In fact, the time dragged until it was well on toward noon before Eddie announced that his pail was running over.
“Can’t seem to hold another handful, fellows,” he observed. “And as you’re all in the same fix I move we start back to camp.”
“That suits me all right!” declared Fred; and not a murmur of dissent was heard, for every one was only too glad that the long strain had come to an end.
When the berry pickers told of their experience that noon, as they munched the lunch that had been prepared, dinner being reserved for the evening when Mr. Capes would in all probability be with them, the others listened with a sort of awe.
Although, boy like, some of them ventured to make fun of the berry pickers on account of their panic, secretly they were ready to confess that under similar conditions they would have done the same thing—would have run wildly.