you? I'm getting weak holding on here all this while; and pretty soon
I'll have to let go. Then there will be a ghost, sure, to haunt this
crowd. Ain't you coming to assist a fellow scout in distress?"

Realizing that the joke had gone far enough the, scout-master himself
sprang forward to give poor Bumpus the assistance he craved.

There was no lack of help after that, Step Hen even made use of the boat
hook to take hold of some part of the wet scout's clothes; and with a
mighty "heave-o!" they dragged him, puffing, and shedding gallons of
water, on to the deck of the stalled power-boat. Here he lay for a
minute or two "to drain," as Giraffe remarked, but soon feeling chilled,
Bumpus began to hunt for his clothes-bag in order to get something dry
to put on.

As he did not have a complete outfit for a change, the other fellows
helped out; but while his soaked khaki suit was drying, hanging here and
there so the sun could do the business, the fat scout presented a
laughable appearance, since of course none of the things that had been
so generously loaned him began to fit his stout figure.

However, since Bumpus was by nature a jolly chap, he quickly saw the
humor of the thing. This was after he had become warmed up fairly well,
when he could sit and watch those who were tinkering with the broken
engine, and tell what his feelings were as he sprang so hurriedly over
into the big lake.

It made him shiver, though, to look around at that sea of water, and
realize what an exceedingly reckless boy he had been.