"Well, I was thinking about doing that job," returned the fat boy, calmly, but with a knowing wink at his companions; "but George here wouldn't hold up long enough for me to try it. When I want to paddle around, he says I've just got to have a rope tied under my arms so he can yank me back if I get too venturesome." "That accounts for it, fellows," cried Josh. "I just had a suspicion that Pudding might be to blame for all the trouble that old chap told me about when I went ashore at noon today." "Me to blame for what?" demanded the other, pretending to be annoyed. "Why, you see," Josh went on blandly, "he says to me that when he was settin' there on the bank try in' to pull in a few buffalo fish for his dinner, along came a tremendous wave. He vowed that it nigh washed him away, and called it a cloudburst or something like that; but now I understand just what it was." "Sho! you don't say," Nick remarked scornfully; "then suppose you tell the rest of us about this bright idea that came to you, the only one you ever had, I guess." "Why, you see, that wave was started when you stepped into the river for your little sportive paddle. It kept growing bigger all the time as it rolled down the stream, till it nigh swamped the old fisherman. I'm almost afraid to hear what calamity may have happened to some of the lower parishes," grinned Josh. "But what's this, Jack, you're saying about Erastus?" asked Herb. "Do you mean to say you chaps have run up against another adventure, while we were just sailing down on the breast of the bully old river?" So after that the story had to be told, and Josh listened with open mouth as he heard about the sheriff and his posse, not to mention the dogs. "Oh! what we do miss, Herb," he lamented. "That all comes of being on a slow coach boat. Next time I'm going to try my luck with one of the others, and let Buster have this soft snap." "Hurray!" cried the fat boy. "If it wasn't for breaking up the race I'd go you right now. My! but wouldn't I have room to turn around in when aboard the _Comfort_? It's a case of a round man in a square hole right now, fellows. But he ain't going to stay round much longer, because, you see, he's getting all the fat rubbed off and will soon be a living skeleton. I'm going to look out for a job in some freak museum after this trip." "If you do then, it'll be as a champion eater or the fat boy," laughed George. "Your appetite keeps on growing frightfully, and I'd like to bet you weigh ten pounds more now than when you left home. I can tell it by the way my boat groans whenever you step aboard. And she sinks below the line I marked when we started, in spite of the half ton of grub we've devoured." "Oh! George, you frighten me," declared Nick, in mock alarm. "Well, what's the programme for today, fellows?" asked Josh. "It's Saturday," said Jack. "Yes, and we agreed not to run on Sunday if we could avoid it by being together," George added.