“Better let him be cheerful while he can, Lee,” said Bobby. “He’ll soon forget how happy he is after we get started again.”
“Well, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for, anyway,” contended Fred. “Suppose we’d all been as fat as Pee Wee, and had to go hopping through this everlasting swamp like—like—”
“Like turkeys on a hot stove?” suggested Lee.
“That seems to about cover it.” said Fred, with a laugh, “even if it isn’t very complimentary to us. But as I was saying, if we’d all been as fat as Pee Wee, we’d never have got here at all. This swamp was never intended for heavyweights.”
“I don’t think it was ever intended for any kind of human being,” said Lee.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Bobby. “It strikes me that this would be an ideal place to put Ap Plunkit and Ben Tompkins, for instance.”
“Wow!” yelled Fred, delightedly. “You certainly had an idea that time, Bobby. And while we’re at it, why not Sandy Jackson and his friend, Snath? Seems to me they’d fit in pretty well, too.”
“Come to think of it, though,” said Bobby, with a serious air, “don’t you think it would be playing it rather low down on the poor alligators! What have they ever done to us that we should wish that bunch on them?”
“Perhaps you’re right,” conceded Fred. “I hadn’t thought of that before. But I guess some of those big fellows we saw this morning are able to take care of themselves.”
“I don’t know who those fellows are you’re talking about, except Snath,” said Lee, “but if they’re any meaner than alligators, I don’t want to know anything about them. They’re the meanest things alive, I think.”