The fat boy moved a little uneasily.
“Whee! I hope now, Jack, it ain’t anything like the woods on fire you got in mind,” he asked, with a sudden vein of alarm in his voice; for Buster had once passed through a very unpleasant experience while in a blazing forest, and often had bad dreams on that account.
Josh made a scornful sound, which was a favorite habit of his whenever he wished to convey the idea that he looked on some remark of the stout boy as indicating an unsound mind.
“And us out here on a measly little old island in the middle of the old Mississippi, at that?” he observed, caustically, and then wound up with another “Huh!”
Jack at another time would have been amused to hear these two go at it, hammer and tongs; but the present was hardly an appropriate time for any sort of a dispute or even discussion.
“Suppose you fellows take a look around,” he remarked, “and perhaps after that you won’t need to ask me where I’m going to get my torch.”
After all it was sharp-eyed Andy who made the discovery.
“Arrah! and sure ’tis the moon he manes!” exclaimed the Irish lad.
“The moon,” echoed George, “now wherever do you see any signs of that same thing, I’d like to know?”
“Would you look at George, starin’ as hard as he can right into the west?” mocked Josh. “Since when has the moon taken to risin’ across the river, George? Reckon you’re a little mixed in your directions, ain’t you? Been bobbing over that engine of yours so much you get off your base. That’s right, turn your head around, and you’ll see what Jack means.”