“Hungry!” muttered Chub, bitterly. “So am I! Well, come along.”
They crossed the field, a particularly moist and “squashy” one, and entered more woods. By this time, although it was still light enough in the open, it was difficult to see much in the forest, and they stumbled over stumps and wandered into blackberry thickets every few steps.
“A chap needs a suit of chain armor for this sort of thing,” said Roy.
“‘This is the forest primeval,’” murmured Chub, picking himself out of a bush. “It’s evil, anyhow.”
“Here it is,” cried Dick, who had found fewer pitfalls and had taken the lead. “Here it is!”
“The boat?” asked Roy, eagerly.
“No, the river.”
“Oh!” they joined him and found themselves on the shore of a little cove, but it was shallower than the one they had left the boat in and was quite empty of craft. Chub sat down on a rock and sighed.
“How beautiful is Nature!” he murmured.