“Not very long,” was the reply.
“Can we do it in the night?” asked Jule. “Say, but I’d like to go into that jungle in the night!”
“Then we’ll take Captain Joe and go,” asserted Alex.
Captain Joe wagged his stumpy tail as if seconding the proposition, and Alex began telling him what a fine gentleman of a dog he was. Captain Joe had already begun to fill out, he having been half starved at the time Alex rescued him, and was now a powerful fellow and as playful as a kitten. The boys were teaching him to do all sorts of tricks.
“You’d better keep the dog on the boat,” Frank warned. “He’ll only bark and attract attention to us.”
“In that wilderness!” ejaculated Case. “Who is there in that bunch of tall timber to hear a dog bark?”
The boys talked over the proposed night visit to the jungle while they finished supper and washed and set away the dishes. Frank seemed to be of the opinion that he could best do what was to be done alone, though the others scoffed at the notion of his bringing out, single handed, anything that might be traded for gasoline and tinned goods!
It was finally decided that Case should go with Frank, and that the other boys should remain on the boat and listen for such signals as the shore party might send out. If help was needed in moving what Frank vaguely referred to as “his cargo,” one long call was to be the signal; if there was danger, three long calls.
The waters of the creek would carry the motor boat only in the middle of the current, for the shores, besides sloping over shallows, were here and there lined with fallen tree-trunks.
“It looks like ruination!” Alex commented, as the row-boat was made ready, and from that moment the stream was known as “Ruination Creek.”