"This looks as if we were going to have rain before morning," was
Shep's comment. "Just our luck—-to be caught in the open."
"Don't croak," said Snap. "No matter what comes, let us make the best of it."
It was almost impossible in the fast gathering darkness to distinguish one part of the shore from another, and they did not know where to land. Seeing a small cove, they made for it, and pulled the rowboat up among some bushes. Then they gathered some firewood, started a blaze, and set about getting a meal which should be a dinner and supper combined.
"Well, I am hungry now and no mistake," said Whopper. "I think
I could eat snakes' eggs on toast or pickled eels' feet."
The camp-fire made things look more cheerful, and a hearty meal did much toward restoring good humor. Yet the boys felt sore over the way Andrew Felps had treated them, and for this they could not be blamed.
"To-morrow we'll have to locate all over again," said Snap. "And if we want to be comfortable, we'll have to put up another cabin. But we needn't to make it quite so complete as that other one was."
"Let us look around and see if we can't find some sort of a natural shelter," suggested Shep—-"some cave, or overhanging rocks, or something like that."
"Where the rocks can come down and bury us alive," said Whopper.
"Wouldn't that be charming!"
"Whopper, you're as soothing as a funeral!" cried Giant. "We ought to make you build the next cabin all alone."
"Well, I could do that if I had time enough," was the dry reply.