"Let"s sit down and eat "em up now," suggested Skeeter. "I am tired of being made the beast of burden. I believe in distribution of labor."
"Why, Skeeter, we haven"t walked a mile yet, and it can"t be more than ten o"clock."
"Well, then, my tumtum must be fast. I shall have to regulate it. It tells me it is almost twelve." No one had a watch so there was no way to prove the time except by the shadows, and Skeeter declared that the shadows on the mountain perforce must slant even at twelve.
"Let"s eat part of the lunch," suggested Lucy. "That will keep poor Skeeter from starving and lighten the load some, too. There is no telling what time it is, but if we are hungry I can"t see that it makes much difference what time it is. I"m starved myself almost."
"Me, too," chorused the others.
They ate only half, prudently putting the rest back in the gunnysack for future reference.
"Gee, I feel some better," sighed Skeeter, whose appet.i.te was ever a marvel to his friends since it never seemed to have the slightest effect on his extreme leanness. Oscar always said: "That there young Marster Skeeter eats so much it makes him po" to carry it."
"Do you boys know exactly where we are going?" asked Lil. They had walked a long distance since the distribution of burdens and now had come to a place where the trail went directly down the mountainside.
"Of course we do! Josh said that when we got to a place where the path suddenly went down we were almost over the cabin where Jude Hanford lives. Didn"t he, Frank?"
"He sure did!"
"But there was a place back further where a path forked off. I saw it, didn"t you, Lucy?"
"Yes, but I thought it was maybe just a washed place."
"This is right, I"m sure," said Skeeter confidently, so the young people clambered down the mountainside following Skeeter"s lead. The path went almost exactly perpendicularly down the mountain for fifty yards and then, as is the way with mountain paths, it changed its mind and started up the mountain again.
"This is a terribly silly path," declared the self-const.i.tuted guide, "but I reckon it will start down again soon. Josh said that Jude Hanford lives almost at the foot of the mountain."
"Let"s keep a-going; there"s no use in turning back," said Frank. "This path is obliged to lead somewhere."
"Maybe it leads to the brigand"s cave," shivered Lil.
"Which way is home?" asked Lucy.
"That way!"
"Over there!"
"Due north from here!"
But as the three of her companions all pointed in different directions, Lucy laughed at them and chose an entirely different point of the compa.s.s as her idea of where Camp Carter was situated. They had been walking for hours and as far as they could tell had not got off of their own mountain. No one seemed to be the least worried about being lost, so Lucy calmed her fears, which were not very great. How could they get lost? All they had to do was retrace their steps if they did not find Jude Hanford"s cabin, where the frying-sized chickens and the roasting ears were supposed to thrive.
"Let"s eat again," suggested the ever empty Skeeter.
They had come to a wonderful mountain stream, one they had never seen before in their rambles. It came dashing down the incline singing a gay song until it found a temporary resting place in a deep hole which seemed to be hollowed out of the living rock.
"What a place to swim!" they exclaimed in a breath.
"I bet it"s cold, though, cold as flugians." Lil trailed her fingers through the icy water and a little fish rose to the surface and gave a nibble. "Look! Look! Isn"t he sweet?"
"Let"s fish," suggested Lucy.
"Fish with what? Guns?" asked Skeeter scornfully.
"No, fishing lines with minnows for bait," and Lucy found a pin in her middy blouse and with a narrow pink ribbon drawn mysteriously from somewhere tied to the pin, which she bent into a fine hook, she got ready for the gentle art. A sardine from a sandwich made excellent bait, at least the speckled beauties in that pool thought so as they rose to it greedily.
"E--e-ee!" squealed Lucy, flopping an eight-inch trout out on the bank.
"I caught a fish! I caught a fish!"
"Oh, gimme a pin, please," begged the boys, so Lucy and Lil had to find fish hooks for their cavaliers and more strings and in a short while all of them were eagerly fishing.
"I never saw such tame fish in all my life," said Frank. "They are just begging to be caught. It seems not very sporty to hook them in, somehow."
"I didn"t know there were any trout in these streams. Doctor Wright says there used to be but the natives have about exterminated them. Gee, there"s a beaut!" and Skeeter flopped a mate to Lucy"s catch out on the gra.s.s.
"Let"s stop fishing and fry these," he suggested, "I"m awfully hungry."
"Hungry! Oh, Skeeter! I"m right uneasy about you," teased Lil.
"Well, I never did think sandwiches were very filling. Somehow they don"t stick to your ribs. Come on, Frank, we can get a fire in no time."
"How can we fry anything without lard and a pan?"
"Oh, we won"t fry, we"ll broil."
"We, indeed!" sniffed Lucy. "You know mighty well, you boys, that when cooking time comes, Lil and I"ll have to do it. I know how to cook fish without a pan--learned in Camp-Fire Girls. Just run a green switch through the gills and lay it across on two p.r.o.nged sticks stuck up on each side of the fire. You go on and make the fire while Lil and I try to catch some more fish. I wonder what Doctor Wright will say when we tell him we caught game fish with a bent pin tied on lingerie ribbon. He brought up all kinds of rods and reels and flies and whipped the streams for miles around and never caught anything but Helen"s veil."
The trout seemed to have become sophisticated when two of their number had been caught and refused to be hooked any more with bent pins and lingerie ribbon, although it was pink and very attractive. The fire went out and Lucy and Lil had to try a hand at it before it could be persuaded to burn.
"It looks to me like fire-making must be woman"s work because they certainly can do it better than us men," said Skeeter solemnly, and the others laughed at him until Lil slipped into the water. Only one foot got wet, however, so there was no harm done.
The fire finally burned and the two little fish, after being scaled and cleaned, were strung across on a green wand. Of course the fire had not been allowed to get to the proper state of red embers so the fish were well smoked before they began to cook.
"Umm! They smell fine!" cried the famished Skeeter.
"They smell mighty like burnt fish to me," said Frank.
They tasted very like burnt fish, too, when they were finally taken from their wand and the young folks drew up for the feast. They lacked salt and were burnt at the tail and raw at the head, but Skeeter picked the bones and p.r.o.nounced them prime.
"I believe it"s getting mighty late and we have not found Jude Hanford"s cabin yet. You stop stuffing now, Skeeter, and let"s get along," said Frank, gathering up the gunnysacks and guns.
"Do you think we had better cross this stream?"
"Sure, if we go back, it will just take us home. We won"t dare show our faces at camp unless we have at least the promise of some chickens and roasting ears. I hope to carry back some in the gunnysacks."
"Of course we must go on," chorused the girls. "We are not one bit tired and if we go on we are sure to come to Jude"s cabin."
Go on they did, how far there was no telling. The path went down, down, down, but led only to another spring. The boys shot some squirrels and the girls found a vine laden with fox grapes.
"Let"s get all we can carry so we can make some jelly. Helen was wishing only the other day she had some. They make the best jelly going," said Lucy, and so they pulled all they could reach and decided the ones that hung too high would be sour.