"You're foolish, Rex," Midkiff again said.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded Peewee. "I don't see——"
"You don't have to," Kingdon said with sharpness. "Come, now! Think I'm going to do this all alone? Want to get it set up again before the rain comes."
"I won't do it!" Phillips protested. "It's foolishness. You're using the steel fist without any reason."
Midkiff yielded. "Rex is within his rights. He's captain. If he says it's moving day, why move we must. But to-morrow we'll see about this."
"You'll have to show us why and what-for to-morrow, then," said Cloudman morosely. "I can obey orders as well as the next one. But these are tyrannical. I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. This will need a lot of explaining to satisfy me."
It was a grouchy bunch that tackled the job. Before starting for the summer camp Rex had been unanimously chosen captain, and they had agreed to obey every order given by him. This, of course, was quite necessary aboard the Spoondrift. Discipline had become somewhat lax ashore, but Kingdon still had the right to command, if he wished to enforce it.
It was necessary to get out the lanterns before they were through, and ere the job was finished it had begun to rain.
Some of their "dunnage" got damp, and when Hicks got into his nightshirt the bottom of it was sopping wet. He almost frothed at the mouth beneath the chaffing of the others.
The rainfall began and continued without the roll of thunder or the flash of lightning. It was a tempest, nevertheless. Harder and harder the rain drummed on the canvas roof. The torrential downpour would have drowned conversation had the boys attempted it.