Part 2 (2/2)
”H-h-he ought t' b-b-be hung f-f-for it!” exclaimed Toby, just as indignant as though it had been his own boat that was injured so wantonly.
”What can we do, Max, to fix her up?” asked Owen, quietly.
”Oh!” put the plug in again, and make sure that it will hold this time.
Later on, when we get back, we'll have to get the boat builder in Carson to put a new streak of cedar planking in, to take the place of this one.”
”Sure you can fix it so there won't be any chance of my going down?”
asked the anxious owner.
”Easy enough. Just give me ten or fifteen minutes, and I'll answer for it,” came the confident response, as Max immediately set to work.
”While this is going on the rest of us can rest,” remarked Owen, dropping down on the ground.
”Here's the sandwiches I made this morning; might as well take a bite, now we've got to hang out here a spell,” and Bandy-legs began pa.s.sing them around.
”Looks to me like we had reached the junction of the Big Sunflower and the Elder,” observed Steve, as he munched away contentedly at his ham sandwich.
”Just what we have,” Max spoke up, working away at his little job, and stopping occasionally to s.n.a.t.c.h a bite. ”It lies right around that bend yonder. I remember it well, and how we made our first haul of the mussels there.”
”Yes, and found a bully old pearl in the first lot,” declared Steve, watching Bandy-legs poke around in the gra.s.s nearby; for the boy with the short legs was of an investigating turn, and liked nothing better than to search for things; ”hey! what you think you'll find there, diamonds this time?”
”Oh! I just run across a lot of wriggling little snakes, about as long as lead pencils, and I'm seein' 'em twist and turn. It's just fun to watch the little beggars get mad.”
”Huh!” grunted Steve, as he turned his attention to what Max was doing; ”some fellers get fun out of mighty little things, sometimes.”
A minute or so later they heard Bandy-legs laugh again.
”Say, let up with that silly play, and come in,” called Steve, testily; ”we're 'bout ready to load up again and go on.”
”You'd die laughing to see her try to get a whack at me,” called back Bandy-legs. ”It's the mother of all them little snakes, I reckon. My!
but she's mad though; just coils up here, and jumps out at me every time I touch her with my stick!”
Max felt a shudder pa.s.s through his person as he looked at Owen. For suddenly he seemed to realize that the rattling sound, which he had of course thought was caused by a noisy locust on a nearby tree, was in fact the deadly warning that an enraged rattlesnake gives when striving to strike its fangs into an enemy!
CHAPTER III.
ON THE ISLAND WITH THE BAD NAME.
”Keep back, Bandy-legs; that's a rattlesnake!” shouted Max, and some of the others turned white with sudden alarm, as they also noted for the first time the incident buzzing sound from a point nearby.
Immediately every one started toward the spot where the foolish Bandy-legs was standing, holding a rather short stick in his hand, with which he had doubtless been tormenting the larger snake just as he had previously annoyed her young brood.
He was now seemingly turned into stone, although fortunately enough he had managed to spring back a pace upon hearing the dreadful words shouted by his chum.
”Get clubs, and make them as long as you can!” called out Owen. ”Be careful how you let her have a chance to reach you when she springs out.
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