This could be no day of leisure for the Go-Ahead Club. To get settled in camp was the first task–and that no small one.
There was the plank flooring to be laid in the big tent, the cook-tent to be erected, and the floor laid in that. There was a sheet-iron stove to erect, with a smoke pipe to the outside, and an asbestos “blanket” to wrap around the pipe to keep the canvas of the tent-top from scorching.
There were the swinging shelves to put up, fastened to the ridge-pole of the cook-tent, on which certain supplies could be kept out of the reach of the wood mice and other small vermin. Indeed, there were a dozen and one things of moment to see about, beside bringing over to the camp a selection of the stores–and their extra clothes–from John Jarley’s shack by the boat landing.
Wyn was a competent girl and knew something about using a hammer and a saw. The flooring planks for both tents had been assembled at Denton, and were numbered; but after they got the sleepers laid Wyn realized that she and her mates had tackled more of a task than they had expected.
“And the boys will be just as busy as they can be to-day,” she said to the other girls. “It’s a wonder if everything they owned didn’t get soaked last evening.
“Now, we can’t depend upon the Busters to give us any assistance just now. Doubt if we see ‘hide nor hair’ of them to-day. But we need somebody to make these floors properly. There! Bess has stuck a splinter into her hand already.”
“Plague take the old board!” snapped Bess, dropping it and sucking on a ragged little wound in her hand.
“You see,” Wyn said, quickly. “I’m going to get some help. Anybody want to walk over to Jarley’s with me?”
“Are you going to get that man to come here?” demanded Bess, sharply.
“Don’t see what else there is to do–do you, Bessie?”