The various good things disappeared like magic before the onslaught of ten hungry boys, and one would have thought, to see them eat, that they had just been rescued after days in an open boat without food or water.
And not till the last crumb had disappeared did they lie back in all sorts of lazy att.i.tudes, like so many young anacondas gorged to the limit.
"That old Roman, Lucullus, or whatever his name was, who used to give those feasts, didn"t have anything on you, Ned," said Tom. "You"ve got him skinned to death."
"Who"s all right, fellows?" asked Fred.
"Ned Wayland!" came the unanimous shout.
"And now," said Melvin, "it"s up to Billy Burton to give us a song. Tune up, Billy."
"Great Scott!" protested Billy, "haven"t you fellows any feelings at all? It"s cruelty to animals to ask me to sing after such a feed as that."
But they persisted and Billy finally obliged with what the boys called a pathetic little ballad, ent.i.tled: "I Didn"t Raise My Dog to be a Sausage."
It met with such approval that he gave as an encore: "Mother, Bring the Hammer, There"s a Fly on Baby"s Head." This "went great," as they say in vaudeville, but despite uproarious applause, the "Sweet Singer of the Wabash" declared that that was his limit for the night.
"A story from Slim!" cried Teddy, and, "A story! A story!" clamored the other boys.
"Ah, what"s the use," said Slim, with a gloom that the twinkle in his eyes belied. "You wouldn"t believe it, anyway."
"I would," said Melvin solemnly. "Cross my heart and hope to die if I wouldn"t."
"Well," began Slim cautiously, "there was a fellow up in Maine once that was spending the winter with a pal of his, trapping in the woods. They were about twenty miles off from the nearest town, and every month or so one of them would have to go to town to lay in a stock of provisions.
"This was a good many years ago, and the wolves were very thick in this part of Maine up near the Canadian border. That winter had been colder than usual, and, as the ground was covered with snow, the wolves were unusually fierce and hungry.
"One day, this fellow I"m telling you about, hitched up his team to the sleigh and drove to town, as their stock was running pretty low. He was kept in town longer than he had expected, and it was late in the afternoon when he started back for his cabin in the woods.
"He had gone about half way, when he heard behind him the howl of a wolf. Then other wolves took it up, and, looking back, he saw some black specks that kept getting bigger and bigger. He whipped up his horses, and they did the best they could, because the wolves frightened them just as much as they did the driver. But they had traveled a good many miles that day, and the wolves kept getting nearer.
"The man had some flour and bacon and other things in the sleigh, and he kept throwing these out as he went along, hoping it would stop the wolves until he could reach his cabin. But he soon found that this was no go, and they"d surely get him, unless he tried something else.
"The only things left in the sleigh now were an empty hogshead, a cask of nails and a hatchet.
"By this time, he had reached a small lake that he had to cross. It was frozen solid, with ice several feet thick.
"By the time he had driven into the middle of this, the wolves were close behind and coming fast. He jumped out of the sleigh and cut the traces, so that the horses might have a chance to get away. Then he threw the nails and hatchet and empty hogshead out on the ice. He turned the hogshead upside down, crept in under and let it down over him. He hadn"t any more than done this, before the wolves were all around him.
"But he was safe enough for the time. He had the little cask of nails to sit on, and he was sure that he could hold the hogshead down so that they couldn"t overturn it.
"They came sniffing around and trying to stick their paws under, and suddenly that gave him an idea."
Here Slim looked slyly out of the corner of his eye at his companions.
They were listening breathlessly, hanging on every word.
"He took the hatchet," Slim resumed, "and broke open the cask of nails.
The next time a paw came under he drove a nail through it, fastening it to the ice. He did this to the next and the next, until there was a circle of paws under the hogshead. Then he chopped off the paws and the wolves limped away howling.
"Then he slid the hogshead along to a smooth place in the ice, and did the same thing all over again. There seemed to be no end of wolves, and he kept moving on from place to place till all his nails were used up.
"At last, he didn"t hear any more noise, and, lifting up the edge of the hogshead, he saw that it was morning, and all the wolves were gone. He got out, and made his way on foot to the cabin, where he found that the horses had got home safe, and his friend was just setting out to look for him. They went back together and counted the paws, and there were just----"
He paused a moment.
"How many?" asked Billy Burton.
"Seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-six," said Slim impressively.
Then, as the boys gasped, "seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-six,"
he repeated firmly.
They rose to smite him.
"Of all the yarn spinners this side of kingdom come!" burst out Ned Wayland.
"There you go," protested Slim plaintively, "you"re always pickin" on me.
"It does seem quite a lot," he admitted judicially, "but if it wasn"t true, why should they give those exact figures, seven thousand nine hundred and ninety-six? It shows they were conscientious and careful.
Now, a liar might have said eight thousand and let it go at that. He might have----"
Just then there came a knock at the door.
CHAPTER XX
A RATTLING GAME
The lights went out in a second.
"Great Scott!" whispered Melvin. "It"s Beansey. I didn"t think it was anywhere near time for him to be around again."
Again came the knock, a little more impatient and imperative this time.
"Open the door," came a voice that they had no difficulty in recognizing as that of "Beansey" Walton.
The boys huddled together, scarcely venturing to breathe.
"Who is there?" drawled out Melvin, in a voice that he tried to make as sleepy as possible.
"It"s me, Mr. Walton," was the response.
Melvin had an inspiration.
"Not on your life!" he shouted. "You"re one of those lowbrows from Number Two trying to play a trick on us. Mr. Walton wouldn"t say: "It"s me." He"d have said, "It is I." Now, go "way and let us sleep. We"re on to you, all right."
There was a moment of awful silence and then they heard the steps of their visitor going softly and swiftly down the hall.