CHAPTER XI
FOREST RADIO
“I’ll say this is the life,” said Herb, as he rambled happily about the lodge which Dr. Dale had turned over to the Radio Boys for a temporary camping place. “Say, fellows, did you ever hear that one about——”
“Shoot him, someone,” interrupted Jimmy, hard-heartedly. “That’s the fifth near joke he has tried to work off on us this morning.”
“Yeah, come and help with this bacon,” added Joe, who was struggling manfully to keep a panful of the aforementioned article from burning to a crisp. “If I don’t eat pretty soon I’m going to drop dead.”
“Same here,” groaned Bob, and went to the rescue just in time to save the bacon.
The lodge was a picturesque, rambling little building with small, many-paned windows and a steeply slanting roof. At some time or other someone had planted vines about its foundations, and these had flourished until the walls were almost completely covered with bright green foliage.
Inside there were three small rooms furnished roughly—the one or two tables and scattered chairs looking as though they had been put together by hand.
The one main room of the little house served as kitchen, living room and dining room all in one but it was large and rambling and comfortable with its great open fireplace at one end and tiny oil stove for cooking at the other.
There were trophies on its rough-beamed walls also and these the boys regarded with interest—old rifles that looked as though they had seen a good deal of service, a horn or two and, in a conspicuous place directly over the fireplace, the great, antlered head of a buck.
This, together with the fact that there were four fairly comfortable cots in the two small rooms adjoining the main one and that there were enough battered utensils in which to cook their meals, was enough to satisfy the boys; especially as the lodge was not more than a stone’s throw away from the headquarters of the forest rangers.