"What for?" asked the sailor called Jed. "Why should I keep still? Anybody would think you were afraid of being found out!" And he laughed heartily, at which sound the junk man quickly pulled down a window while Sam hurried from the stove and shut the door that had been left open.
The two sailors stood looking at one another, while out in the yard poor Ruddy howled and whimpered.
CHAPTER XVIII
SCOUTS ON THE WATCH
"Now, boys!" said Scout Master Harry Taylor, as Rick and the others reached the old log cabin, "if we are going to camp out here and find Ruddy, we must go at it right."
"Can we build a fire and cook things to eat?" asked Rick, as he put on one of the rude bunks the bundle he had brought from home.
"Oh, yes, we'll cook and eat," the Scout Master promised with a smile. "I guess you haven't done much camping out, Rick," he added.
"No," was the answer. "But I like it, and I'm going to be a Boy Scout after this."
"It's lots of fun!" declared Tom. "Come on, Rick, and help me get wood."
"I'll make up the beds," added Chot.
"And I'll help," said a voice in the door-way of the log cabin. Sam Brown, son of the farmer who had taken the boys to Belemere and brought them back, had come to join the others as he had promised. He was going to do what he could to help get Ruddy back for Rick.