“If any hungry coons happen along this way, the chickens won’t be apt to die a lingering death, or one by drowning either. A twist of the neck would see their finish,” said Billy.
“I don’t like the way those horses keep swimming after us, Hugh,” protested Tip.
“Oh! they want to be sociable,” laughed Billy, “but we’re leaving them in the lurch faster now, and soon they’ll give it up. When that happens they’ll most likely swim to the nearest shore, eh, Hugh?”
“No question about it,” the pilot assured him. “Horses and cows have some sense about them. Even on a black night they’d know where the shore lay. It must be what we call intuition, and which takes the place of reasoning powers with animals and birds.”
“Yes, and with frogs and toads, too,” said Billy. “I’ve picked up a toad many a time and thrown him as far out in the lake as I could; but let me tell you I never yet saw him strike out; he’d head for the shore every time, swimming for all he was worth, like he thought a black bass would snap him up.”
“What time do you think it is?” asked Monkey Stallings from up in the bow where he was keeping a lookout—he called it the “crow’s nest,” because he had read that on board a ship that is where a man is stationed to sweep the horizon with his marine glasses from time to time.
“Just three o’clock,” replied Hugh, and as there was no sun to tell him, he must have glanced at his watch in order to say it so positively.
“We’ve got two hours or so more of daylight to work in,” Tip remarked. “Then we’ll have the time of our lives crawling back home in the dark, without any of us knowing our bearings in the night.”
“Oh, it isn’t going to be quite that bad,” sang out Monkey. “Uncle always keeps plenty of lights aboard. There’s even a reflector that can be hung up here in the bow. It is one of those acetylene gas affairs, and makes a dazzling white light.”
“Good enough!” cried Billy. “If we’re hard pushed we can keep up our rescue work into the night. I’d hate to think we’d left a single poor chap to drown when we might exert ourselves a little extra and save him.”