Just as Jack ended this report Buster was heard to give a startled cry.
“What ails him now?” demanded Josh, looking toward the fat boy.
“Just what I thought, he’s gone and overfed, and now he’s feeling a gripe coming on; he’ll sure burst some fine day,” grumbled George, groaning to think that all during the trip he must put up with such a rolypoly of a crew as Buster Longfellow.
“’Tain’t neither,” snapped the other, indignantly. “I c’n breathe as well as any feller present. I gave that little gasp-like because I was staggered, when Jack, he read about that trim little boat painted white, with the red trimmin’ around the gunnel. Want to know why, don’t you? Well, the fact is, fellers, I set eyes on that pirate craft myself, and not so very long ago either; fact is, just half an hour before we struck here. Now, what d’ye think of that, hey?” and Buster expanded perceptibly, doubtless feeling his own importance as the bearer of startling news.
“Whee!” exclaimed Josh, hardly able to believe his ears when he heard the fat boy make this astonishing declaration so positively.
George also expressed more or less surprise, though from the look on his face it was evident that he was beginning to guess something in connection with what his “crew” was stating.
Jack immediately took Buster in hand. It was the only way of making him tell all he knew, without forever “beating about the bush,” and giving himself lots of airs; for Buster seldom found himself in the center of the stage; and when such an event did come along he wished to make the most of it. What boy, wouldn’t, tell me?
“See here,” Jack went on to say, “you want to tell us all about that, now, Buster; because you’ve just made a startling statement; and we hope you can back it up. How could you see that boat, and none of the rest of us notice it; tell us that in the first place.”
“Shucks! that’s easy enough, fellers,” replied the other, bent on making the most of his advantage. “Tell you how that was. You may remember that George found himself away ahead, near the close of the run; and as George, he doesn’t like to hold up even a little bit, what did he do but spin away over to the other shore, and go down that, say about five miles above the upper end of this blooming old island.”