the rude shelter made of branches.




CHAPTER IV

LAUNCHED ON THE INLAND SEA


Sure enough Bumpus was in plain sight, for the fire still burned, and
there was also a bright moon high up in the heavens. The fat scout
seemed to be trying to execute all the steps in a Southern hoedown, or
an Irish jig; for he was prancing around this way and that, holding on
to his hand, which the other boys now discovered was streaked with
blood!

"Oh! what's happened to you, Bumpus?" cried Step Hen, as he ran out
toward the spot where the other continued to waltz around in his bright
red and white striped pajamas, that made him look like an "animated
sawed-off barber's pole," as one of his chums had once told him.

"It bit me, oh! I'll bleed to death, I reckon now!" wailed the other;
"say, Thad, get out some of that purple stuff you use for scratches from
wild animals. Mebbe blood, poisoning'll develop; and I'd just hate the
worst kind to die up here, away off from my own home."


"What bit you; can't you tell us, Bumpus?" asked Thad, though already he
may have had suspicions that way.