"We will do our best," responded Rand.
"And now," continued the colonel, "in celebration of the organization of--By the way, you haven"t chosen a name yet, have you? What kind of a name do you want?"
"Oh, I s-s-say," stammered Pepper.
"Sing it, Pepper," suggested Donald.
"L-let"s have an Indian name."
"Want to indulge your savage instincts and live in a wigwam?" asked Rand.
"It"s a tepee, not a wigwam," corrected Pepper. "But we can go hunting and have a good time in the woods."
"All right, Pepper," agreed Gerald, "an Indian name is good enough for me."
"Have you any name in mind?" asked the colonel.
"The Oneidas used to roam about here, didn"t they?" asked Jack.
"No," replied the colonel, "they were farther north."
"What Indians were in this section?" asked Rand.
"The Haverstraws held all the land about here," replied the colonel.
"We want something more original than that," said Jack.
"Something aboriginal," put in Gerald.
"I guess that"s it," laughed Jack. "How about Mohicans?"
"I have it!" cried Pepper. "What"s the matter with Uncas?"
"Who were they?" asked d.i.c.k.
"It wasn"t they," replied Pepper, "it was him. Don"t you remember he was the last of the Mohicans."
"That"s a very good name," commended the colonel.
"Then Uncas it is," agreed the boys.
"Now that you have agreed upon a name," continued the colonel, "what do you say to having a real Scout dinner in the woods?"
"That s-strikes me favorably," exclaimed Pepper.
"Then if you will make a fire I will go on a hunting expedition and see what game I can secure," said the colonel. "Better get to work, boys, for I won"t be long. You will find some meal and salt in the shack, Rand, to make some bread."
"All right," responded the boys, "we will have everything ready when you get back."
The boys fell to work at once, Jack and Don gathering the wood for the fire, while Rand and Pepper mixed the dough for the bread, d.i.c.k and Gerald agreeing to do the cleaning up afterwards. By the time the colonel came back the fire was blazing and the bread baking on some stones, which were set up in front of the fire.
"How did you make out?" asked Pepper of the colonel when he returned.
"Pretty well," replied the colonel; "I got a saddle of venison and a couple of prairie chickens."
"Really?" asked Pepper, his eyes snapping.
"Well, we"ll call them that," replied the colonel.
Under the colonel"s direction the chickens and the saddle of mutton were suspended over the fire and kept slowly turning until they were thoroughly roasted.
"Done to a turn," as Gerald expressed it.
"Better put out a sentinel, hadn"t you?" suggested the colonel when they had all gathered about the fire to watch the cooking of the dinner.
"A sentinel!" exclaimed Rand. "What for?"
"Well, we don"t want our dinner carried off before our eyes," replied the colonel. "Are you sure that your agile enemy isn"t watching us from somewhere and just waiting for it to be done to his taste before making a raid on us?"
"Monkey Rae!" cried Pepper, starting up. "You haven"t seen anything of him, have you?"
"No," replied the colonel; "but, still it"s well to be on the lookout for him. He"s rather a tricky sort of a chap, I believe."
"He certainly is," admitted Rand, "but it"s mostly fun with him; but Sam Tompkins, he"s quite a different sort."
"What is the matter with him?" asked the colonel.
"I don"t know," drawled Rand, "except he was just born that way.
I think he is bad just from love of it."
"Isn"t that rather a sweeping condemnation, Randolph?" asked the colonel.
"Oh, he"s the worst of the bunch," put in Pepper decidedly.
"That"s all true," added Jack. "There hasn"t been any mischief perpetrated in town for the last four or five years that he hasn"t been at the bottom of it."
"He puts the other boys up to do all kinds of things and keeps in the dark himself," continued Pepper.
"He would have been put away long ago," went on Jack, "if it wasn"t for his father"s political pull."
"Where did you learn all these things, Jack?" asked the colonel.
"Oh, we find out a good many things in the newspaper business, you know."
"So it seems," admitted the colonel. "What has Master Tompkins been doing lately?"
"That"s hard to tell," replied Jack laughingly, "he does so many things. I hear he is going to get up an opposition patrol."