inute they
saw Humpty they got terribly attached to him."

"Yes!" snorted the plump youth indignantly--"to one of my legs, the
beastly things! Hurry up, Dale, for goodness' sake; I'm all cramped up!"

A snicker went up from the other boats. "You ought to have spoken to 'em
sharply, Ved," grinned Ranny, "and discouraged such liberties."

"Yes," laughed Court; "be firm with 'em!"

Vedder snorted again and, reaching for the rail of the _Aquita_, climbed
aboard with remarkable agility. "Maybe you think that's funny," he
growled, taking possession of the most comfortable seat in sight; "but
I'd rather tackle a snake any day than a boat-load of crabs."

He was so taken up with his own affairs that he quite missed the meaning
glance that passed between Court Parker and Bob Gibson as they fastened
their painter to the stern of the power-boat. He thought nothing,
either, of the fact that they were first ashore, where, hastening to
remove from under one of the seats a medium-sized bait-box covered
with seaweed, they disappeared behind the cook-shack.

But later on, an uncomfortable suspicion came to him that there was
something in the wind. Approaching the cook-shack, where a crowd was
occupied in breaking up shells and extracting crab-meat for supper, he
noticed Parker, Sanson, and Tompkins giggling and whispering with heads
close together. As he came up they stopped abruptly, but after supper he
saw them again, clustered in a group with Gibson and Bennie Rhead, and
caught a grinning glance from the latter that deepened his suspicion.

"I'll bet they're up to some trick," he said to himself.

Uneasily, he kept a sharp lookout, determined that they should not catch
him napping. But oddly enough, the joke, whatever it was, seemed to
subside, and for all his watchfulness Vedder failed to detect any more
suspicious confabs during the evening.

Nevertheless, he remained on guard, especially after dark. He did not
stray far from headquarters without peering about for such pitfalls as
taut ropes, water-pails, and the like. At the council-fire he selected
his place with especial care, and saw that no one approached from behind
without his knowing it. But the evening passed uneventfully, and when he
had reached the tent in safety and was undressing by the light of the
single lantern, he decided he must have been worrying to no purpose.

"Guess I was wrong after all," he thought, tying the pajama-strings about
his ample waist. "