“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed the captain.
“I couldn’t get there with your oil, Cap,” sighed the boy. “I lost me way, and—look at me!”
They did, all of them. Under the gleam of the captain’s light they looked at him.
“Poor little chap!” repeated Babs. She was the first to recover her composure sufficiently to begin at the bushes. She was trying to tear them away from the crouched little figure.
Presently all of them, including the captain, were at those bushes, tearing, pulling, breaking, until the tangle was cleared away.
“An’ ye tried to get me the oil, Nick,” the captain said, as he put his big friendly hand out to the boy. “I knew you would.”
“Yeh, and I would have too, only fer me busted arm,” Nicky proclaimed stoutly scrambling to his feet.
“You were trying to ride that old wheel, hold a heavy can of oil and find your way in this storm,” Dudley reasoned astoundedly. “It’s a wonder you even have your voice left,” he concluded as a big boy would.
“’Bout all,” Captain Quiller added. “A youngster like Nicky ain’t got no special fightin’ force to boast of, only his spirit. He’s got the spunk, ain’t you Nick?”
“Oh, that ain’t nawthin’,” deprecated the boy, from whose clothing Babs and Cara were still dragging bits of briars and dried sticks. “Don’t spill the oil,” he protested, for the old bicycle was prone against the oil can and the least movement of it might spill the precious fluid.