Jumbo, in great leaps and strides, arrived at the lake-side in a few instants. In the meantime, the camp behind him was in an uproar of excitement over the midnight alarm.
The negro had already reached the waterside before he felt himself knocked flat by a heavy blow on the head. Now Jumbo’s head, like all negroes’, was about as hard as a bit of adamant. But the cowardly fellow deemed it better to lie perfectly still when he was knocked flat. Presently he felt himself being picked up and thrown into something that the next instant began to move off. He realized in a flash that he was lying in the bottom of one of the canoes.
“Hailp! Hailp!” he began to yell, but was silent instantly as a harsh voice breathed in his ear:
“You shut up if you don’t want a bullet in your black head.”
Jumbo lay silent after that. But his thoughts were busy.
“Bullet in mah haid, eh?” he mused, “mah goodness, ah don’t want nuffin’ lak dat. Mah cocoanut feels now laik ah’d done tried ter butt a locusmocus off’n de track. Wondah what deportentiousness uv all dis unusualauness done mean?”
His meditations were interrupted by a shout from the shore.
“Bring back those canoes at once!”
“Mah goodness, dat am de majah,” exclaimed Jumbo, but to himself. “He shuh am po’ful mad. Wondah if dem boys is playin’ pranks. If dey is dey’ll be sorry fer it.”
The black ventured to raise his head a little and peep up to see who was in the canoe with him. In doing so his eyes fell on another figure lying beside him. In the moonlight he could see the cords that bound it. The radiance of the moon also revealed the Boy Scout uniform.