"Well, we haven't lost any snakes," commented Max, "and so we won't try to rescue that floating vine. We've had our turn at saving menageries, seems to me, enough for one season anyway."
What Max referred to was a series of remarkable adventures that came to the four chums at a time when a storm blew down the tents belonging to a circus about to exhibit in Carson, and liberating many of the animals connected with the menagerie; but full particulars of this thrilling experience have already been given in the volume preceding this, so that further explanation would seem to be unnecessary here.
Toby did not make any reply. He rubbed his eyes pretty hard, as though wondering how they could have deceived him so strangely. But then a fellow who was devoting so much of his thoughts to the mania for strange pets in the shape of wild animals might be expected to see things in a different light from his chums, who were not addicted to that weakness.
"For one," said Bandy-legs, "I'm real glad it wasn't a snake, because they always give me the creeps, you remember, I hate 'em so. Just think what a fine pickle we'd be in now if a monster anaconda or a big boa constrictor or python, broke loose from a show, should climb up on our bridge boat, and start to chasin' us all overboard. Things look bad enough as they are without our takin' on a bunch of new trouble. So, Toby, please don't glimpse anything else, and give us fits, will you?"
Steve seemed to be intently watching the shore, especially whenever the revolving timbers brought them in a line with the western bank, because that was more familiar to the boys than the other, since Carson lay on that side of the river toward the setting sun.
"I'm trying to make out where we are, Max," he explained, upon seeing that the other was observing him curiously.
Bandy-legs uttered a loud and significant grunt.
"Say, Steve," he remarked with a touch of satire in his voice, "I can tell you that much, if you're all mixed up. We're squattin' on the remains of our bloomin' bridge, which used to cross the river in front of Carson; yes-siree, and we seem to be takin' an unexpected voyage downstream, without a port in sight. 'Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink,' as the ship-wrecked sailor used to sing; only we could manage with this muddy stuff if we had to, because it ain't salty, you know."
"How far have we come, Max?" Steve continued, anxious to know, and pretending to pay no attention to Bandy-legs' humorous remarks.
"I'm trying to figure it out myself, Steve," admitted the other, who had also been studying the shore line, though everything was so changed during the high water that it was difficult to recognize land marks that had previously been quite familiar to him; "and the best I can make out is that we must be somewhere near Dixon's Point, where the river makes that first sharp curve."