“Two what?” queried Stevens.
“You called him a dummy. Is he really dumb?”
“He mumbled something or other when we asked him to help us,” explained Monroe; “but it wasn’t anything human. And Barry declared it was bad luck to meet a dummy.”
“And so it is!” snapped young Spink. “Doesn’t this prove it?”
“Funny about there being two fellows who act like dummies being at large,” remarked Dan to Billy.
“I should say so,” agreed the younger brother. “Say, Money! where’d your dummy go to when he wouldn’t help you chaps?”
“He was comin’ across from the mainland, and he went up into the woods on Island Number One. I bet he’s stopping there,” answered Stevens.
“Nonsense! there’s nothing on that island. No hut, nor any shelter. Bet he was going right along across the river.”
“Well, he didn’t go on while we were up that way, for when we got the White Albatross fixed, we sailed around the island and come down on the far side—and the snow lay all along the edge of the island there, and there wasn’t a footprint in it. Oh! here’s the shops. My goodness! won’t it be—be go-o-od to get next to—a fire,” chattered Stevens.
When the Speedwells had seen the shivering castaways humped upon stools before the boilers, they hurried away to deliver the remainder of their bottled milk. On the way to Colonel Sudds’s Dan said: