"Why, yes, they're really small meteors. We often pass through a mess of 'em. I've counted hundreds in a single night," Phil continued, always willing to give any information he could along his favorite study.
"Well, they say lightning don't strike in the same place twice; and that goes with your old buzzing meteors too, I reckon; so what's the use in our staying up any longer?" remarked Bobolink, who seemed quite satisfied with the explanation Paul had given of the queer noise, and the flash of brilliant light.
So they crawled back into their snug nests, and tried to compose themselves for sleep. But it is extremely doubtful whether a single one of those eighteen boys secured so much as a decent cat-nap between that hour and dawn.
Despite their apparent belief in the explanation of the phenomenon advanced by Paul, the boys could not get rid of the notion that that tremendous crash had something to do with the strange things told about the haunted island, and which helped to give it its bad name.
They were up pretty early, too. The first birds were beginning to chirp in the brush when figures came crawling out of the tents, with a great stretching of arms, and long yawns.
Then the lake tempted many of the boys, and a great splashing announced that those who could swim were enjoying a morning dip while others were taking a lesson in learning the first rudiments in the art; for Paul wanted every scout in Stanhope Troop to be able to swim and dive before the Fall came on.
The scout master himself watched the proceedings, hardly able to get his own dip because of his anxiety concerning those who, for the time being, had been placed in his charge.
This thing of being responsible for seventeen lively boys is not all that it may be cracked up to be; especially if the acting scout master is a conscientious chap, alive to his duties. Paul felt the weight of the load; but he did not shrink.
Breakfast was presently under way, and nobody found any fault when Bobolink announced that he meant to instruct Nat Smith and another boy just how to go about making those delicious flapjacks for which he himself had become famous.
In the cooking contests, at the time the Stanhope Troop carried off their banner in competition with the troops of Manchester and Aldine, Bobolink had easily outclassed all rivals when it came to the science of camp cookery, and his flapjacks were admitted without a peer, so that ever since, when the boys had an outing, there was always a shout when it was found that Bobolink was willing to get a mess of cakes ready for their attention.