"There'll be no trouble about that part of it, if only the food is around," Max assured them. "If the worst comes we'll have to commandeer the food market, and settle afterwards. Can you make it all right, Shack?"
"Easy as fallin' off a log," replied the stout boy, who was still wielding the sculling oar back and forth with that peculiar turning motion that presented the broad surface of the blade to the water all the time, and induced the boat to move forward with a steady action.
He made his words good a few minutes later, for the stem of the boat ran gently up against the bank, where a log offered a good chance for disembarking.
No one would want a better landing stage; and so the three girls managed to go ashore without wetting their feet any more than they had been before.
Every one seemed glad to get on solid ground again. Even Max secretly admitted that it did feel very good to know he had no longer to depend on the whims of the current, but could go wherever he willed.
"Let's hunt out a decent place to make a camp," he remarked, "and then after we get the shelter started, and the cheery fire warming things up, two of us ought to wander off up the bank and see what's doing around that house."
"I'll go with yon, Max," said Bandy-legs hastily, as though more or less afraid that he might come in a poor second, as it was a case of "first come, first served."
They drew the boat well up, and fastened it with the length of rope that served as a painter; the clothes-line Max thought to take along with him, as there was a possibility they might need it before through with this adventure.
Then they started through the woods, which just at this point happened to be unusually dense, with great trees rearing their crests a hundred feet or so above the heads of the shipwrecked Crusoes.
It was not long before Max called attention to a certain spot which he claimed would answer all their present needs.