"And we"re doing it for fun," added Upton. "Funny what a difference the view-point makes. I suppose it"s all in the way you look at it whether work is fun or fun is work. I can tell you one thing, and that is that I for one am mighty glad that there isn"t another one of those things to cross to-day. I"m afraid I"d lie down and holler quits. What are you rubbing your legs for, Sparrer?"
"Just feeling of "em to get wise if dey"s all dere," replied Sparrer.
The remainder of the trail to Little Goose was comparatively easy and they reached the familiar lean-to just as dusk was settling down, and there was more than one sigh of thankfulness as the shoes were kicked off for the last time.
"I"m tired enough to drop right down and go to sleep in the snow, but my little tummy won"t let me," confessed Hal. "Ring for the waiter, please, and have him bring me a planked steak with half a chicken on the side, grapefruit salad, and a pot of coffee with real cream. Wake me up when it comes."
"Nothing doing," declared Pat. "This isn"t the Waldorf Astoria, but Hotel de Shivers; heat and food supplied only to those who pay in labor, all bills payable in advance."
"That"s me!" Hal seated himself on the pile of stuff and gave vent to an exaggerated sigh of contentment. "Haven"t I labored all day? Tell the bellhop to take my stuff to my room. I think I"ll have my dinner served there."
He ended with a grunt, the result of a sharp poke in the pit of his stomach from an axe handle. "To turn on the heat with," explained Pat sweetly, thrusting the axe into Hal"s hands, and pointing to a pile of birch logs.
Hal got to his feet with a groan and a grimace and followed Upton who, with another axe, had already started for the wood-pile. "You"re a slave driver! That"s what you are, a flint-hearted slave driver," he grumbled, albeit with a twinkle that belied his words.
"My tummy, oh, my tummy!
It gives me such a pain!
I wonder will it ever Feel really full again!"
"That depends on how soon you get that wood split," grinned Pat. "If you don"t get a move on it will be so dark you can"t see what you are doing, and I give you fair warning--no wood, no dinner."
"Let it never be said I am ever a shirk When a dinner depends on the way that I work,"
retorted Hal, and forthwith fell to his task with a vim that put Upton on his mettle to break even with him, for Hal was no mean axeman, as Pat well knew. The handling of an axe was one of the things which Hal had learned, and learned well during his three summers in the woods. To the thorough woodsman an axe is a complete tool-chest. With it he can do almost anything that needs to be done from the cutting of fire-wood to the building of a log cabin.
Sparrer was put to work pulling down the hemlock boughs which had been piled in front of the lean-to to keep out the snow, while Pat unpacked things, started the fire and made preparations for the evening meal.
This was Sparrer"s first experience in a lean-to, and when the boughs were out of the way he examined it with interest. The back and two ends were of logs, the front being open its whole width. The roof was of big sheets of hemlock bark laid overlapping and with a sharp pitch to the back.
On the ground about seven feet from the rear wall two six-foot logs about eight inches through had been staked end to end so that they reached from one side wall to the other. Midway a similar log had been laid across to the rear wall, making two pens, as it were. These had been filled with small balsam boughs thrust at an angle, b.u.t.ts down, so that they "shingled," and packed closely. The result was two beds fifteen inches thick and so springy and comfortable that it made one sleepy just to look at them. It was perhaps three feet from the beds to the open front. In this s.p.a.ce at one end was a table two feet square made by driving four stakes into the ground and nailing on a top made of a flattened sheet of cedar bark.
A little snow had sifted in through the protecting boughs and this Sparrer swept out with a fir bough for a broom. Pat, meanwhile, had a kettle of snow melting for water for soup and was mixing up a johnny-cake. The reflector oven was set before the fire to get heated and while Sparrer helped bring in the wood which the two choppers had split Pat sliced bacon and put it on to parboil in the frying-pan, having melted snow to make water enough to cover it.
"Wot youse doing that for?" asked Sparrer. "Oi thought youse always fried bacon."
"To get some of the salt out of it, son," replied Pat. "I"ll fry it all right when the time comes. Just you lay out the plates and cups where they will keep warm."
Sparrer ranged the four agate-ware plates, which were really shallow pans so that soup could be served in them as well as dry food, against a stick where they would get warm but not too hot to handle. The erbswurst was crumbled into the now boiling water, a handful of julienne, or evaporated vegetables cut in thin strips, was added, the pan of johnny-cake was put in the oven and the four boys gathered around to watch and wait with many a hungry sniff. The soup was soon ready, and Pat announced the first course. How good it did taste as they sat on their blanket rolls near enough to the fire to enjoy its warmth, each with a pan of the hot soup on his knees.
Before this was finished Pat poured off the water from the bacon and that was soon sizzling and throwing off that most delicious of all odors to a hungry woodsman.
"Course number two!" called Pat as he apportioned the brown slices among the four plates and then drew forth the johnny-cake, baked to a turn, a rich even brown all over with a heart of gold, the very sight of which brought forth gasps of delighted antic.i.p.ation.
"What"s course number three, Mr. Chef?" asked Walter as he prepared to sink his teeth into his quarter of the corn bread.
"Something worth saving your appet.i.te for," replied Pat, re-greasing the pan and pouring in the remainder of his batter for another cake. He poured off all but a little of the bacon fat from the big frying-pan, and then dropped into it a slice of meat which he had kept hidden under a towel.
"Venison, by all that"s great!" shouted Hal as the meat began to sizzle on the hot iron. "Why didn"t you tell us you had venison, so that the thought of it would have helped us up that pesky hill?"
"Tis the docthor"s contribution to the joy av living," responded Pat, deftly flipping the steak over to sear the other side. "But I mistrust yez have eaten so much already thot "tis not the loikes av yez will be wanting more than maybe a wee bite. But never ye moind. "Tis meself will do justice to the docthor and his gift."
"Don"t you believe it!" roared the three in unison.
The steak and the second johnny-cake were done together and were finished together to the last sc.r.a.p and crumb, and along with them went hot chocolate. There was a general loosening of belts, and then Hal broke the silence of contentment which had fallen on the little group.
"My tummy, oh, my tummy!
It has now another pain!
I wish that it were empty That it might be filled again,"
said he, gazing mournfully into his empty plate.
"Them"s my sentiments too," said Walter, when the laugh that followed had subsided. "But any fellow who springs a thing like that has to pay for it. I move that Hal wash the dishes. All in favor say aye."
Three ayes made the woods ring. "All opposed say no!"
Hal"s "No!" was shouted at the top of his lungs.
""Tis a vote," declared Walter. "Mr. Harrison will now attend to his duties and carry out the action of this a.s.sembly."
After the dishes were out of the way Pat built a huge fire with three great backlogs one above another and slanting back to keep them from rolling down. They were held in place by braces at the back. In front of these smaller logs were piled, the backlogs reflecting the heat forward into the lean-to. Then the blankets were spread on the rough beds, and with all their clothing on, including moccasins, four weary young woodsmen turned in for the night.
Pat was asleep almost as soon as he touched the bed, and Hal and Upton were not far behind him. But to Sparrer, tired as he was, the novelty of his surroundings was too great for immediate sleep, and for a long time he lay staring out at the flickering flames and above them at the brilliant stars, his active imagination keyed to a high pitch. It was like fairy-land to him. Nothing seemed real. He had read and heard of these things, but that he, Eddie Muldoon, could actually be experiencing them, sleeping in a real hunter"s camp in the dead of winter, tramping on snow-shoes through great lonely forests, eating such meals as he had never known before in all his short life--meals cooked over open fires in the great wonderful out-of-doors, couldn"t be. And yet here he was.
The fire died down until only a deep glow, a warm ruddy glow which grew less and less, lighted the rough interior, and before it had quite vanished Eddie had slipped from the real which seemed unreal to the unreal which so often seems real in the realm of dreams.
Three times during the night Pat crawled out of his blankets to put wood on the fire, but the other sleepers knew nothing of it. They slept the deep heavy sleep of healthy, tired boys and it mattered not to them that the temperature dropped until the very trees cracked and split with the cold. They were as warm and comfortable as if in their own beds at home.
Overhead the stars shone down on a great white world wherein the fire made but a flickering point of yellow light, and wherein was no sound save the heavy breathing of the sleepers, the sputter of hot coals snapping off into the snow, the occasional crack of a frost-riven tree, and the soft stamp of a snow-shoe rabbit gazing wonder-eyed at the dying embers.
CHAPTER VIII
ALEC HINTS AT DARK THINGS
Hal was willing to swear that he had not been asleep more than ten minutes when he was awakened by the beating of a pan with a stick and Pat"s roar of "Breakfast! All hands out for breakfast!" He rolled over sleepily so as to look out. Pat was laughing at him. Beyond the firelight and from the tiny strip of sky above the dark tree tops he could see a few pale stars blinking at him weakly.
"Aw, Pat, that"s no joke. You may think it"s funny, but it isn"t," he growled, and there was a note of real anger this time.
"What?" demanded Pat with a deep throaty chuckle.
"You know what--waking a feller up when he"s just got to sleep and is dead tired and got a hard day coming!" flared Hal.
"Aisy, aisy, son! Do ye think I would be frying bacon in the middle of the night for a joke? "Tis meself has been up this good hour and "tis six o"clock this very minute. "Twill be daylight by the toime we be ready to start," returned Pat good-humoredly.
Hal had it on the tip of his tongue to say that he didn"t believe it, but by this time he was sufficiently awake to smell the bacon and hear it sizzle and sputter in the pan. Moreover, his companions were already kicking off their blankets, and he had the good sense to realize that Pat meant just what he said. Still, it was hard to believe, and it was not until he had reached for his watch that he was convinced that it really was time to prepare for another day"s tramp. Then he hastily crawled from his blankets, his good humor fully restored, for Hal was a good sport, and there was nothing of the shirk about him.
"I beg pardon, Pat," said he, as he joined the two shivering figures crowding as close to the fire as they could comfortably get while they watched Pat stir up the pancake batter. "I honestly thought you were up to one of your old tricks and putting something across on us. Doesn"t seem as if I"d more than closed my eyes. Phew! but it"s cold!"