“Why, ain’t it a part of my business to start the fire every time?” demanded the party in question, who was on his knees; “didn’t Thad promise me that job if I’d keep on being careful about startin’ fires every-which-way? I ain’t had a blessed match on my person since I gave that promise, have I, Thad? And what’s wrong about my getting the blaze in my own way, tell me that, Bumpus?”
“But we want supper, and we don’t mean to sit around here an hour or two, just watchin’ you tinker with that silly old bow and stick, twirling away like you had to saw through to China. How about that, Thad?” and Bumpus turned appealingly toward the patrol leader, well knowing that whatever he said would go.
“Bumpus is right, Giraffe,” the other said, kindly but firmly. “You’re welcome to spend all the time you want with that contraption, after you’ve started our cooking fire; but it wouldn’t be fair to hold up the whole bunch just to please yourself. Your own good sense tells you that, Giraffe.”
Giraffe, of course, had to appear to be convinced.
“Just when I had a new scheme in my head, too, that I just know would have made the fire come,” he grumbled, as he hung the little bow on a twig of a tree near by, and produced flint and steel, and a little bag in which he kept tinder, in the shape of tiny shavings which he was always preparing at odd moments; “and before I get another chance to try it, I’ll have forgotten the combination, sure. But that’s always the way it goes; though don’t you dare think Bumpus Hawtree, that I’m going to give up so easy. I’ll fight it out this way if it takes all winter.”
Being an adept with the flint and steel, Giraffe quickly had his fire started.
“And that’s the way it’ll be after I’ve just got that one little snag passed,” he took occasion to remark, for the benefit of the fat scout, who was hovering near by. “Everything’s easy as tumbling off a log, once you know how. P’raps you remember what a time you had learnin’ to ride a bike; and yet now you can cut around corners, and even stand on the saddle while she’s going. Well, you wait and see my smoke.”
“Huh! that’s all I ever will see, I’m afraid,” chuckled Bumpus.
But presently Giraffe managed to drift into a more amiable humor. That was when the coffee pot was bubbling on the fire, sending out its cheery aroma; and the last of the eggs they had managed to buy from a potato grower on the bank of the Aroostook were sizzling in the two large frying-pans.
Most boys possess hearty appetites, and Giraffe was no exception to the rule. Indeed, like most lean fellows, he had an enormous stowage capacity somewhere about him, and could dispose of more food on occasion than any two of his mates. Bumpus always declared he had hollow legs, and used them for receptacles, when other places were filled to overflowing. But not one of the scouts could remember the time when Giraffe complained of having eaten too much. Like the crowded street car, there was always room for more.