Shaddy screwed his eye round for a moment, but did not turn his head.
“Don’t you get taking my ’tention off my work!” he growled. “That’s a—that’s a—well, I shall forget my own name directly!—a what-you-may-call-it—name like a candle.”
“Tapir,” cried Rob.
“That’s him, my lad. Any one would think you had been born on ’Merican rivers. Rum pig-like crittur, with a snout like a little elephant’s trunk, to ketch hold of grass and branches and nick ’em into his mouth. I say—”
“Well, what, Shaddy?” said Rob. The man had stopped to bear hard upon his oar.
“Pull, my lads,” he growled to his men. “Hold tight, every one. I didn’t see it soon enough. Tree trunk!”
Rob seized one of the supports of the cabin roofing and gazed over it at what seemed like a piece of bark just before them, and the next moment there was a smart shock, a tremendous swirl in the water, and a shower of spray poured over them like drops of silver in the bright sunshine, as something black, which Rob took for a denuded branch, waved in the air, and Joe plumped down into the bottom of the boat.
Shaddy chuckled and wiped the water out of his eye.
“I’m thinking so much about trees washed from the bank that I can’t see anything else.”
“But it was only a small tree, Shaddy, and did us no harm.”