[CHAPTER XV]
JUST A MINUTE TOO LATE
“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Buster, presently, and the others heard more or less of a loud crashing, which would seem to indicate that the fat boy, who was always rather clumsy in his movements, had stumbled and fallen amidst the impediments that sprinkled their course.
“Hurt, Buster?” questioned Herb, who was close behind.
“Naw, only knocked a little skin off my knees, I guess. Better luck next time,” was the cheerful reply, as the unfortunate one scrambled to his feet, and again resumed his forward progress.
When Jack and his five mates started off, the man Jenks, and his employer, Algernon Lorrimer, apparently did not mean to be left entirely in the lurch. They were in the group now pushing through the wooded part of the island, and trying to surmount the many difficulties that beset their course.
Algernon had about as much trouble as Buster to navigate safely; now it was some unnoticed log that threatened to trip him up, and again a hanging vine tried to choke him outright. Jenks hovered near by, ready to come to the rescue of his employer should the latter succeed in getting into a severe pinch. As Josh afterward said in commenting on this solicitude on the part of the machinist, perhaps Jenks had not been paid his week’s wages as yet, and wanted to make sure he would have an employer to whom he could look for the expected cash.
One thing proved of considerable assistance, and this was the moon. Battered though it might be, and with one side partly gone, still the faithful old sky lantern was able to give out a considerable amount of silvery light.
“Lucky we’ve got that moon, let me tell you,” grunted Buster, as he continued to boom along, making enough noise, so Josh declared, to warn the whole neighborhood of their coming.
“Some people’d need three moons to get along half way decent,” was what Josh declared from some point close by.
“Hush!” Jack remarked, and at that they all fell quiet again.