bow, munching an apple. "We'll strike several weeks of rain,
and not get a shot at anything larger than a rabbit. Then we'll
all take cold, and have to send for a doctor, and-----"

"Say, please heave him overboard, somebody!" burst out Giant.
"He's just as cheerful as a funeral. We are going to have nothing
but sunshine, and I am going to shoot two bears, four deer, seventeen
wildcats, eighteen-----"

"Hold on!" shouted Snap. "You have gotten into Whopper's story-bag,
Giant, and it won't do."

"Oh, I was fooling!" said Whopper. "We are going to have a peach
of a time. We are going to strike an old lodge in the wood---some
an old hermit once lived in---and find a big pot of gold under the-----"

"Bay window, near the well, just across the corner from the
barber shop, next to the school," broke in Shep. "Say, cut out
the fairy tales and get to business. Does anybody know that it
is exactly ten minutes to twelve?"

"Codfish and crullers! You don't say so!" came from Whopper. "I knew
I was getting hollow somewhere. What shall we do---go ashore and
cook dinner?"

"Might as well," came from Snap. "Our time's our own, remember.
We haven't got to hurry."

"I know just the spot, about quarter of a mile from here," said
Shep. "Our family once went there for a picnic. There's a good