“That will be too bad,” said Phil, “for they’ve got on splendidly so far. No matter what happened to the boat, they’ve always had their regular meals.”
“Yes,” said Adam, “them rascals ’spected to make money out of these bears, and they fed ’em up first-rate, but that’s the only good thing they did do. They’ve made us lose pretty nigh two whole days, besides comin’ within an inch of havin’ a reg’lar battle among ourselves. That was about the last thing I thought could happen.”
“I suppose that part of it was my fault,” said Chap. “I oughtn’t to have tried to get back the boat without letting you know about it.”
“It was just as much my fault,” said Phil. “If I hadn’t gone off, and taken Phœnix, those fellows wouldn’t have tried to run off with the boat.”
“If it comes to that,” remarked Adam, “you might as well say it was my fault; for if I hadn’t them little bears, and gone to get milk for ’em, nothin’ would ’a’ happened. But I say it’s nobody’s fault. We all did the best we could, and there’s the end of it.”
When our party reached the main stream, they found a fair wind blowing from the east. This was very favorable for them, and they reached Cooper’s store about the middle of the afternoon.
“By the way,” said Phil, “it’s rather curious that we didn’t overtake that dirty little Maggie, with the two boat-thieves aboard.”
“I reckon,” said Phœnix, “that as soon as she got out of that small river she went down-stream, instead of going up, as we did; but she must have made pretty good time to get out into Indian River before us; for, of course, she couldn’t sail at night.”
“No,” said Adam, “but they started a good deal earlier than we did. They didn’t stop to cook breakfast and bid good-by to girls.”
“Neither did we,” cried Chap, promptly,—“that is, we only waited for breakfast. I didn’t keep you waiting a minute.”