None of them had ever been in the Far South, so all they knew about the country, its animals, and the habits of its people, must come through reading, and observation as they went along.
But they did know the comfort of a tight waterproof canvas tent in case of a heavy rain storm; and consequently a good part of the luggage they carried in the three trunks had been a couple of such coverings, besides the usual camp outfit about which many happy associations of the past were clinging.
These trunks had of course been left in the small town where they had obtained the roughly made canoes, to be picked up on their return later.
Long experience had made every one of them clever hands at tent-raising; and from the way Smithy and Davy undertook to get one up in advance of Step Hen and Bob White, it was plain to see that the old-time spirit of rivalry still held good.
Giraffe as usual took it upon himself to start the cooking fire. He was what the other boys called a “crank” at fire-building, and had long ago demonstrated his ability to start a blaze without a single match, by any one of several ancient methods, such as using a little bow that twirled a sharp-pointed stick so rapidly in a wooden socket that a spark was generated, which in turn quickly communicated to a minute amount of inflammable material, and was then coaxed along until a fire resulted.
Bumpus always stood ready to assist in the cooking operations; because there were so many other things coming along that required dexterity and agility, and from which his size and clumsiness debarred him, that he just felt as though he must be doing something in order to shoulder his share of the work.
As the twilight quickly deepened into night—for in the South there is not a very long interval between the going down of the sun, and the pinning of the curtains of darkness—the scene became quite an animated one, with eight lively lads moving around, each fulfilling some self-imposed duty that would add to the comfort and happiness of the patrol in camp.
And when that “delicious home-cured ham” that Bumpus had spoken of, and which had really come from his own house, so that he knew what he was saying when thus describing it, began to turn a rich brown in the pair of generous frying-pans, giving out a most appetizing odor; together with the coffee that Bumpus himself had kept charge of, well, the healthy boy who could keep from counting the minutes until summoned to that glorious feast would have been a strange combination.
Bumpus was trying a new way with his coffee. Heretofore he had simply placed it in the cold water, and brought this to a boil, keeping it going for five minutes or more. Now he had the water boiling, and just poured in the coffee, previously wetted, and with an egg broken into the same; after which he gave it about a minute to boil, then let it steep alongside the fire for the rest of the time.
“Better than anything we ever had, isn’t it, fellows?” he demanded, after he had tested the contents of his big tin cup, and nearly scalded his mouth in his eagerness. “Ketch me going back to the old way again. Coffee boiled is coffee spoiled, I read in our cook book at home.”