"Ginger! don't I on'y wish I cud be goin' along!" said Johnny Spreen with an expression on his face that could only be described as compound disappointment.
"All of us would be glad if you were, Johnny," Elmer told him, feeling for the boy, whose company would certainly be of considerable help to the expedition, for Johnny knew the watery paths and the tangles of Sassafras Swamp as, perhaps, no other fellow possibly could, since he had long haunted its recesses, laying traps, and looking for new haunts of the wily muskrats.
"As there are seven of us, all told," remarked Lil Artha, "that means three in one boat, and four in the other. Elmer, you divide up. This newer skiff looks to me just a weenty bit the bigger."
"It is by a foot, and wider, too," asserted Johnny, quickly.
"Then it ought to carry four, of course; but how's this, Johnny, where are the oars for both craft; I don't see any!"
"Shucks! we don't use oars in the ole swamp," declared the other. "A push pole's the best way tuh git along. Yuh see it's soft mud everywhar, and so we cuts poles with a crotch at the end. That keeps 'em frum sinking deep in the mud, so yuh kin git a chanct tuh shove."
"And a mighty good idea, too," avowed Toby; "I've had a little experience with just plain everyday push poles, and even got hung up when one stuck in the mud, so the boat left me. But Elmer, how'll we divide?"
The patrol leader glanced over his force. It was only fair that he arrange it so the weight would be as nearly equal as possible.
"Lil Artha, take Mark and Landy in the smaller skiff; the rest will go with me," he announced immediately.
Mark was the nearest chum of the patrol leader, but Elmer disliked favoritism, and hence he thus tacitly placed Lil Artha in command of the second boat. But then there was also another good reason for doing this, since the tall scout had always shown himself to be clever on the water, much more so than the bugler of the troop.