less by what decision the other scouts reached.

"Oh! can't we skip out before they get their hands on us, Thad?" Bumpus
wanted to know. "We're full twenty feet and more away from the shore,
and it'd take a champion sprinter and jumper to cover that distance."

"Yes, but how about running out into that storm again, eh, Bumpus? Feel
like going through another experience like that?" demanded Giraffe.

"Not any for me, thank you. Thad, I say, do what he tells us. He can't
eat us, I reckon; and we ain't got any reason to be afraid because of
anything we've done."

"Same here, Thad," remarked Davy, quickly: he had been feeling very much
like backing up Bumpus in his request, but what Giraffe said caused him
to "take water" instantly, and Davy was as quick to make a revolution in
his mind as his body could revolve in several handsprings over the
ground, when he was feeling good.

"Allan, how about you?" asked Thad, feeling that much depended on what
the one addressed thought.

"No help for it, Thad; we've got to throw up our hands that far, anyway;
because, like as not they've got us covered right now with their guns,
and while they can see us fairly well, everything all dark to us up
there."

"Oh! my stars!" Bumpus was heard to whisper to himself, in a horrified
tone, as he learned about those terrible firearms that must be held with
their muzzles projecting in the direction of the floating home of the