The leader of the crew huddled sheepishly down over his oar, which Joel
handed him to do some of the rowing, and he didn't look at the owner of the
boat, till, just as they neared the bank, he glanced up suddenly and said:
"Say, you, I s'pose you'll tell on us."
"What do you take me for?" cried Joel, in extreme disgust, and plying his
oar briskly. All this time the rain had come down in torrents, till there
wasn't much difference between the boys who had been in the water and the
one who had kept out, and the lightning played over their heads in
unpleasant zigzag streaks, and the thunder rolled and rumbled.
The leader shivered and ducked till he couldn't by any possibility be said
to look at Joel.
"Well, I would if I was you." The words came in a burst from a boy supposed
to be in such a half-drowned condition that he wouldn't care to take part
in any conversation, who was crouched down in the bottom of the boat. "I'd
tell every single thing about it." He raised himself and shook his fist at
the leader's very face. "If it hadn't been for you, Mike," he said, "we
wouldn't have come."
"Don't fight," said Joel, in consternation at any such settling of their
differences in his boat; "you'll upset us all."
"Humph!" the boy in the bottom of the boat sneered. "He won't fight, Mike
won't," he said.
And really Mike didn't look as if he would, for he crouched and cowered
lower yet, till Joel began to say, "Give me the oar," for it wabbled so
that it played a small part only in getting the craft to the shore.
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