They listened, and presently they heard a voice in the distance calling, “Tom! Jim! boys! somebody! Bring us our clothes!”
“It’s Harry and Joe,” exclaimed Tom. “Where on earth are they?”
HARRY AND JOE IN A TRAP.
They looked up the canal, and finally discovered a naked arm waving frantically from behind a barn that stood near the water. “They must be behind that barn,” said Tom. “Why, the mosquitoes will eat ’em alive! I’ll take their clothes to them right away.” So saying, Tom gathered up the shirts, trousers, and hats of the two unhappy divers, and ran with them to their owners. He found Harry and Joe crouched behind the barn, chattering with cold and surrounded by clouds of eager mosquitoes. “We’ve been here half an hour,” cried Joe, “and the mosquitoes would have finished us in another half-hour. I think my right leg is nearly gone already.”
“And I know I must have lost a gallon of blood,” said Harry.
“But why on earth did you come here?” asked Tom.
“Because the canal is just lined with women and girls,” replied Joe. “They think it’s a circus; but I’m not going to do circus-acting without tights.”
The boys hurriedly dressed themselves, and returning to the boat helped to put it on the wagon; and with the wet shoes hanging from the cart-rungs they started on their ride to Warrensburg. It was a hot and tedious ride, and as the wagon had no springs, the boys were bumped so terribly that they ached all over. They tried to sing, but the words were bumped out of them in the most startling way; and after singing one verse of the Star-spangled Banner in this fashion,
“The St-t-tar-spangl-led-led ba-a-an-na-na—”