Part 78 (1/2)
”Fastened up to that old tree.”
”Oh, is it!” cried Bob derisively. ”I should like to see it, then.
Come and show me!”
Dexter ran to the water's edge, and found the place on the bark where the chain had rubbed the trunk, but there was no sign of the boat.
”Now then,” cried Bob fiercely, ”where is it?”
”I don't know,” said Dexter dolefully. ”Yes, I do,” he cried. ”The chain must have come undone, and it's floating away.”
”Oh, is it?” said Bob derisively. ”Then you'd better go and find it!”
”Go and find it?”
”Yes; we can't go to sea in our boots, can we, stoopid?”
”But which way shall I go, Bob? Sometimes the tide runs up, and sometimes it runs down.”
”Yes, and I'll make you run up and down. You're a nice un, you are! I just shet my eyes for a few minutes, and trust you to look after the boat, and when I wake up again you're fa.s.s asleep, and the boat gone.”
”I'm very sorry, Bob, but I was so tired.”
”Tired! You tired! What on? Here, go and find that boat!”
Dexter started off, and ran along the bank in one direction, while Bob went in the other, and at the end of half an hour Dexter came back feeling miserable and despondent as he had never felt before.
”Found it, Bob!” he said.
For answer his companion threw himself down upon his face, and began beating the ground with his fists, as if it were a drum.
”I've looked along there as far as I could go,” said Dexter sadly.
”What shall we do!”
”I wish this here was your stoopid head,” snarled Bob, as he hammered away at the bare ground beneath the tree. ”I never see such a chap!”
”But what shall we do?” said Dexter again.
”Do? I dunno, and I don't care. You lost the boat, and you've got to find it.”
”Let's go on together and walk all along the bank till we find somebody who has seen it.”
”And when we do find 'em d'yer think they'll be such softs as to give it to us back again!” This was a startling question.
”I know 'em,” said Bob. ”They'll want to know where we got it from, and how we come by it, and all sorts o' nonsense o' that kind. Say we ain't no right to it. I know what they'll say.”
”But p'r'aps it's floating about?”
”P'r'aps you're floating about!” cried Bob, with a snarl. ”Boat like that don't go floating about without some one in it, and if it does some one gets hold of it, and says it's his.”
This was a terrible check to their adventurous voyage, as unexpected as it was sudden, and Dexter looked dolefully up in his companion's face.