The next thing was to rip the boarding off the cabin. This was to be the final step, for it would deprive them of shelter. It was too late to make any progress with it that evening, however.
“This may be our last chance to sleep,” Bob remarked. “Let’s have supper and then make the most of a roof while we’ve got it.”
“Nothin’ much for supper ’ceptin’ corn-meal, an’ mighty little of that,” put in Sam, after inspecting the larder.
“Good thing we’re going to be away to-morrow,” said Joe. “Break into that stuff under the floor and get a ham. There’s no time to hunt or fish now, and we’ve got to have lots to eat, with all this heavy work.”
Sam delightedly broke into the robbers’ hoard in the “cellar” and unearthed a ham, from which he fried several large slices. It was a little musty, but it was better food than they had had for a day or two, and after devouring it they took Bob’s advice and slept soundly, all of them being extremely tired.
With the next daylight they began the work of tearing down Old Dick’s cabin. The boards were old, many of them were badly rotted, but most of them would serve in some way. Rapidly they ripped them off with ax and hammer, until the building that had been so useful to them was a mere skeleton. It was then noon; they cooked more of the stolen ham, and, growing reckless, Bob delved into the buried hoard and brought up a tin of biscuits and a can of tomatoes.
“We can keep track of what we use, and settle for it later with—with somebody,” he explained.
After eating, they laboriously carried the lumber down to the bayou, rolled half a dozen logs into the water, and began to put the raft together. It was a hot day, and the moist heat near the water was intense. Worried by mosquitoes and yellow-flies, soaked to the skin by constantly splashing into and out of the water, the boys labored and sweltered. They flung the boards across the logs and nailed them down as rapidly as possible, and the raft grew before their eyes. But it was going to be a bigger job than they had anticipated, and they had to stop at dark with only a third of the craft completed.
After seven hours of furious labor the next day they had laid all the flooring of the raft. Nothing was left now but to load the bees and the supplies; but they looked dubiously at the task of carrying more than a hundred two-story hives fifty yards down-hill to the water. It would take two of them to handle one hive, and they would have to walk slowly.
