This they did for him, and soon he was rowing away from the spot as best he could, fearful, evidently, that the negro would come, as Whopper had said, to "chew him up."
"He's about the limit!" was Snap's comment, when Simon Lundy was out of hearing. "How I would love to play ghost on him!"
"He'd have a fit and die," added Shep.
The negro had not disarranged the boat in the least, so they were soon on their way, Shep and Giant taking the oars. Snap leaned back in the stern and stretched himself.
"Tell you what, fellows, our outing is starting with lots of excitement.
Wonder how it is going to end?"
"Perhaps it will end very tamely," said Whopper, who was in the bow, munching an apple. "We'll strike several weeks of rain, and not get a shot at anything larger than a rabbit. Then we'll all take cold, and have to send for a doctor, and——-"
"Say, please heave him overboard, somebody!" burst out Giant. "He's just as cheerful as a funeral. We are going to have nothing but sunshine, and I am going to shoot two bears, four deer, seventeen wildcats, eighteen——-"
"Hold on!" shouted Snap. "You have gotten into Whopper's story-bag,
Giant, and it won't do."
"Oh, I was fooling!" said Whopper. "We are going to have a peach of a time. We are going to strike an old lodge in the wood—-some an old hermit once lived in—-and find a big pot of gold under the——-"
"Bay window, near the well, just across the corner from the barber shop, next to the school," broke in Shep. "Say, cut out the fairy tales and get to business. Does anybody know that it is exactly ten minutes to twelve?"