CHAPTER XXI.
THE LITTLE FIRE BOW DOES ITS WORK AT LAST.
“Oh! what is it, Giraffe?” exclaimed Bumpus, in a quavering voice.
“I told you I c’d do it! On’y gimme time, and I’ll figger the old thing out, I said; and I have!” cried the exultant Giraffe.
“Why, it’s burnin’!” gasped the other, staring at the tiny flame that was playing hide-and-seek in the midst of the dry tinder that had so long awaited its coming.
“Sure it is; anybody with one eye could see that!” Giraffe sent back, about as happy a fellow as the sun ever shone on, because his long endurance test had in the end met with such grand success. “Hey! what’s the matter, Bumpus? Get a move on, and collect some stuff to add to this, before the thing goes out on me. Lively, boy, lively with you, while I shield it with my hands!”
He hugged the little blaze with his body and hands while Bumpus, dropping the now useless gun, eagerly gathered a lot of dry pine needles, and made a pile of them close to his chum.
“Oh! glory! Bully for you, Giraffe! You’re the scout who can stick to a thing like a plaster. Don’t it look good, though?” cried the shorter lad; but the fire-maker would not let him loiter.
Presently there was no longer any dread of the fire burning out; and both of the scouts could get busy collecting fuel. Dead branches were in demand, and fortunately enough, there happened to be plenty of the same close by, so that without much effort they were able to get quite a heap near the fire.
“Now let’s sit down, and warm up a bit,” suggested Bumpus; although truth to tell, he was at that moment perspiring from his recent exertions.
“And if you want to talk about eating now, Bumpus, you’re quite welcome,” the taller scout went on to say, with a grin; “because there’s something to it. We’ve got the birds, and we’ve got the fire to cook ’em by. Who said I couldn’t start a fire by sawin’ at my fiddle till I burst a blood vessel? Wasn’t it Davy Jones? Well, you c’n just tell him for me, next time you see him, Bumpus, that he was all wrong. Why, it’s just as easy as fallin’ off a log; er, that is, after you know how.”