“He’s got the motor boat in his pocket—perhaps!” Clay said, dejectedly. “We’ll have to walk back to Chicago, I take it! Well, we may as well laugh as cry, so here goes for the merry side of things. It might be worse, you know!”
“I fail to see how it could be much worse,” Case observed. “We are shy clothes and everything! Right now we look like a lot of monkeys dancing about in the forest!”
Jule was by this time within hailing distance, and Buck called out to him, asking where the boat was. For answer the boy pointed down the river.
“I knew it!” said Case, with a shiver.
“How did it happen?” asked Buck.
“It drifted away,” replied Jule, when he came within speaking distance, “but some men down the river caught it. It will be up here in a few minutes.” “Whoop-ee!” shouted Case.
“I’ve got a picture of our walk back to Chicago!” Clay exclaimed, dancing about in his ruined sweater and trousers. “Not yet—not for your Uncle Zeke!”
“Why didn’t you get into the boat and ride up?” asked Buck.
“There was no place to land,” was the reply. “There comes the boat now, with three men aboard of her.”
“I give it up,” declared Rube, rising to his feet. “At the present time if cows were selling for a cent apiece, the whole party couldn’t buy a piece of cheese an inch in size!”