"Gee," exclaimed Dick, as he and Bert rose in righteous wrath preliminary to smothering Tom under an avalanche of bedclothes, "it's a lucky thing you don't feel any better than you do. In that case you'd probably be landing us with a couple of pieces of furniture."
"I'd like to do that, anyway," came Tom's muffled voice from beneath the pile of pillows and blankets. "For Heaven's sake, let me up and quit stepping on my head."
Thus adjured, Bert and Dick released their victim, and after what looked like a miniature earthquake among the pile of things on the floor Tom emerged, very red in the face.
"That's a swell way to start the day, isn't it?" he protested in an injured tone. "Two minutes more of that and I'd have smothered, sure. If you want to murder me, why don't you do it in a less painful manner?"
"Hush, my son," said Dick. "Who started it? Never start anything you can't finish, my boy."
With this piece of good advice Dick started dressing, and the others followed suit. After this they made up the lunch, eating a sandwich now and then by way of breakfast. There was nothing fancy in the way in which the sandwiches were thrown together, and the mothers of the three boys would no doubt have been horrified could they have seen it. However, "everything went," as Bert expressed it, and in a very short time they had their packing done and were ready to start.
They slipped as silently as possible through the corridors, and in less time than it takes to tell were in the outer air. It was still very early, and the hot sun was not yet high enough to dissipate the heavy mist that hung close over the ground. They knew this would not last long, however, so started out on their expedition at a round gait.
They had resolved beforehand to strike into the wild country bordering the path of the big ditch, and see it "at first hand," as Dick phrased it. Each had a rifle with him, and they expected to bag some small game if opportunity should offer, with which to supplement their lunch.
The country immediately bordering the Canal at this point was rather barren and rocky, but at no great distance a thick tropical jungle sprang up, and it was into this that the boys resolved to go. Accordingly they picked their way over the rough flat, perhaps two miles in width, which lay between them and the line of green jungle.
The going was very rough, and it took them almost an hour to reach the trees. Everything has an end, however, and in due time they found themselves at the edge of the fringe of trees that stood out a little way from the main forest. These were soon passed, and the comrades entered the green gloom of the big tropic trees. Their trunks shot up thirty or forty feet before the branches sprang out, and were thinly encircled by clinging vines and plants.