Tim could make no reply, for as soon as Bill spoke he remembered how chickens ought to look when ready to be roasted, and he knew he could no longer hope to be considered a competent cook.
That day the party made their dinner of boiled potatoes and pastry, while Tip actually revelled on the half-roasted fowl he had so ruthlessly slain.
Chapter XII.
TIP’S DANGER.
The work of preparing the dinner had occupied so much time that it was nearly the regular hour for supper before the last boy arose from the lowly table, and not one of them had any desire to fish or hunt. They sat around the fire, dodging the smoke as best they could, until the setting sun warned them that they must get their bedroom work done at once, or be obliged to do it in the dark.
This task was remarkably simple; it consisted in each boy finding his blanket, wrapping himself in it, and lying on the ground, all in a row, like herrings in a box.
Nor did they wait very long for slumber to visit their eyelids, for in ten minutes after they were ready it came to all, even to Tip, who had curled himself up snugly under Tim’s arm.
Had any of the party been experienced in the sport of “camping out,” they would have studied the signs in the sky, for the purpose of learning what might have been expected of the weather; but as it was, they had all laid themselves down to sleep without a thought that the dark clouds which had begun to gather in the sky were evidences of a storm.
It was nearly midnight, and up to that time not one of them had awakened from the heavy sleep into which he had first fallen, when Tim became painfully aware that something was wrong. He had been dreaming that he was again on the Pride of the Wave, that Captain Pratt had thrown him overboard because he had been trying to steer, and just as he struck the water he awoke, with a start.
The moment his eyes were open he understood the reason for his dream: he was lying in a large pool of water, and the blanket in which he had wrapped himself so comfortably was thoroughly saturated with it. At first he was at a loss to account for this sudden change of condition, and then the loud patter of rain on the canvas roof told the story plainly. A storm had come up, and the tent, being on the slope of a hill, was serving as a sort of reservoir for little streams of water that were rapidly increasing in size.