Meanwhile Jack and Frank were thoroughly enjoying their plunge. The water was warm, there was no wind, and they swam, dived, floated to their heart’s content. Neither realized the passage of time until Frank, suddenly filled with compunction at their long absence, while Bob kept watch, scrambled ashore and looked at his watch, laid out on top of his clothes.
“Great guns, Jack,” he announced, “we’ve been gone an hour. Good old Bob. He was mighty nice about sending us off to swim while he kept watch, but you know he likes to swim, too. He’ll be thinking it’s a low trick on our part to stay so long. Maybe he’ll want to come and take a plunge himself, when one of us gets back to relieve him.”
Jack also had a guilty feeling and, as is the way with most of us, attempted to make excuses.
“He might just as well have come along,” he said. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
They were pulling on their clothes.
Suddenly they heard Bob’s voice raised in a distant shout, calling their names. Then followed a brisk outbreak of rifle shots.
CHAPTER XII.—THE SURPRISE ATTACK.
“An attack,” gasped Jack.
“And we’re not there to help old Bob,” cried Frank, in an agony of apprehension. “Come on. Don’t stop to finish dressing.”
Shirt flapping out over his trousers, shoes unlaced, Frank frantically buckled on his revolver and cartridge belt, seized his rifle and started on a dead run through the trees. Jack did likewise. As they ran, they heard the shots continuing intermittently, and then once more—clearer and closer at hand, as they neared the knoll—came Bob’s voice: