“Do you want to know my idea, George?” asked Jack, frankly.
“I sure do,” came the reply.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” the other went on to say. “It would be a great stunt to carry off this white boat, if only we were sure the parties are the robbers. But stop and think what we’d be up against if they were innocent parties. Why, they could have us arrested for stealing their craft; and what excuse would we have to offer? The old gag about not knowing it was loaded wouldn’t pass in court. We’d get a heavy fine, even if it wasn’t worse. This is a time when it’ll pay us to be sure before we go ahead.”
“Huh! p’raps you’re right, Jack,” grunted Josh, already beginning to weaken before this sort of logic.
George did not open his mouth, but he was always willing to listen to what Jack had to say; for the other never gloried in showing any of his comrades up as being in the wrong.
“But the principal thing of all, and which we’d have to find out first, before thinking of hooking the boat, would be to know whether they expect to sleep ashore, or aboard,” Jack went on to say.
At that Buster tittered.
“Think what a cheeky thing it’d be,” he remarked, softly, “if we ran away with the boat, and then found that we’d kidnapped a couple of innocent ducklings, one of them mamma’s darling boy! Whew! mebbe we wouldn’t feel cheap though!”
“Oh!” said Jack, “then you’ve been thinking that this terrible Slim Jim, the dandy hobo, might be somebody else, have you, Buster? Well, I tell you what we ought to do, boys—hang around, and watch that pair some more. If they begin to get the camp ready as though they meant to stay ashore tonight, we can talk it over again, and decide whether we’ll play George’s trick or not with the boat. How?”
“I say leave it that way,” ventured Josh, now completely won over.