"Listen till him, would ye, Jack?" he exclaimed, coming forward to where the speed boat meant to land. "Did ye iver know such a gossoon in all your loife? Is it supper ye're afther wantin? Sure, ye'll not foind anny too much grub aboard the _Tramp_ roight now. But such as it is, ye're as wilcome to as the flowers in May." Whereupon he started in at once to cook another supply. "It's lucky ye kim, me byes," he remarked presently, while the others were sitting about, warming their hands at the fire, and waiting for supper. "Now, by the same token, we'll not be facin' starvation so soon." "Don't count too much on that, Jimmie," observed George, making a face. "I guess you forget who was with me these three days, and how he can stow away stuff? Why, we're cleaned out of everything. I was even talking of cooking our moccasins for soup a while back. For, you see, my gun's a rifle, and somehow I haven't been able to knock over much with bullets. We hoped to see a deer or a bear; but nixey up to now." "Glory be!" exclaimed the sorely dismayed cook of the _Tramp_, as he considered what an enormous amount it took to keep Nick going, and he remembered the scanty stores still remaining in the larder. "What brought you in this out-of-the-way place, George?" asked Jack. "Now, don't go to joshing and pretending you knew we were here, because you didn't. Ten to one you met that planter, too." "Meaning Mr. Tweed, the gentleman with the crooked nose, and the long, thin mustache?" George went on. "That's the man," laughed Jack. "You quizzed him, too, about a short-cut, and he posted you. Then, just as we did a little later, you made a blunder and ran into the wrong channel. Confess now." "That's just what we did," grinned George. "And ever since I've been listening to the complainings of Buster. Oh! he's starved to death twenty times, in imagination of course, since we blundered into that false cut-off. I had to finally threaten to tie him up and gag him if he didn't stop. And after that he watched me like a hawk. I guess he thought I meant to eat him up." "Well, it was very suspicious," admitted Nick, soberly, "because, you see, he even pinched me several times; and I got a horrible notion in my head that he was trying to see how fat I was." Then the others burst into a roar, in which Nick himself finally joined, unable to keep a straight face longer. They sat up long that night, trying to lay plans that gave some promise of fulfillment, and take them out of the labyrinth of channels. "If we stay here much longer Herb is going to have a walkover about winning the silver cup," George remarked, half complainingly. "Sure, perhaps he do be matin' up wid the same smooth spoken Mr. Twade," observed Jimmie, with a broad grin. His suggestion brought out another round of laughter.