Part 18 (1/2)

But how about our ham, is that gone, too!”

”Well, I should say, yes,” declared Giraffe, an injured look on his face, as if he felt accusing eyes fixed upon him, ”s'pose you think one poor lone ham with six hungry fellows to chaw away at it, could last forever, but it won't. If you want to know what we've got left I'll tell you--two cans of Boston baked beans, one of tomatoes, some potatoes, a package of rice, plenty of tea, sugar and coffee, three tins of milk, some chocolate, and three packages of crackers.”

”Is that all?” gasped b.u.mpus.

”So you see right away to-morrow we've got to get busy trying to lay in some sort of supplies,” Giraffe went on to say. ”How about that, Thad?”

”You never said truer words,” was the scoutmaster's comment.

”Yum, yum, I don't know when I've enjoyed a supper like I have this one,” Step Hen acknowledged.

”I hope it ain't the last time I'll hear you say that,” remarked Giraffe.

”Hope so myself,” returned the other, ”because it'd be too bad if I had to quit eating at my tender age.”

”Thad, do you think this island could be inhabited?”

It was Davy who asked this question, but b.u.mpus must have been thinking along the same lines, for he nodded his head violently and smiled, as though he awaited Thad's answer with interest.

”Of course I couldn't say,” the scout-master observed. ”It's only a small rocky island, you know, and people wouldn't live here the year'

through.”

”But they might come here, ain't that so?” Step Hen insisted.

”Why, yes, to fish, or shoot wild fowl in the season,” Thad went on to say.

”Well, I sure do hope there may be some white fish netters here right now,” Step Hen said.

”Or if their ain't, let's wish they'll be comin' along soon,” b.u.mpus added with a fervency that was certainly genuine.

”I wonder,” Davy broke in with, ”what we could do if our boat was carried away, or we found we couldn't mend the same?”

”Huh! What did old Robinson do but build him a boat? Here are six boys, wide-awake as they make 'em--and I'd like to know why we couldn't do as much as one man!”

b.u.mpus said this rather boastfully, not that he had so much confidence in his own ability to do things as he felt satisfied that Thad and Allan would be equal to almost any emergency.

”Well, we might, under the same conditions,” the former told him.

”Ain't the conditions the same,” inquired Step Hen. ”He was wrecked, and so are we, you might call it.”

”Yes, but there's no tree on this rocky island big enough to make into a boat,” Thad informed him.

”That's a fact, they do grow dwarf trees here,” Step Hen admitted.

”And suppose there was, how could we ever chop one down with one little camp hatchet, and hollow out the log?” Thad asked.

”Might take a year,” acknowledged the other.

”We'd freeze to death here in the winter time, because it gets awful cold, they say,” Step Hen continued.