“Now it would be a good thing for everybody who cared to do it to put his bundle aboard one of the supply wagons,” Dick suggested. “Four miles is something of a walk on a hot day like this, and it’s going to feel like a bag of lead before you get there. We can take turns carrying those precious home-laid eggs.”
“If we get settled in camp this afternoon we’ll be in good fix for our first night out,” asserted Elmer, after they had started on the tramp, stringing along the dusty country road.
“We ought to have the camp in pretty good shape for Mr. Holwell, if he keeps his promise and comes up to see how we’re getting on to-morrow,” added Dan. “We must let him see that we know how to go about things in a way to make ’em look clean and neat. As Mr. Bartlett says, we don’t mean to stand for any shiftless ways in Camp Russabaga!”
“That name sounds good to me,” remarked Dick, instantly. “If the rest of you are of the same mind let’s begin and call it that from now on.”
“Camp Russabaga it is!” exclaimed Peg, with his customary enthusiasm. “There could hardly be a name that’d suit me better.”
“It’s just the ticket all around!” added Asa.
“I should call it quite euphonious!” observed Humbert Loft, who after all had decided to risk having his feelings hurt many times by his rough comrades, and from sheer curiosity had concluded to accompany them on the camping trip.
The campers plodded along just ahead of the heavily laden wagons, and as is the case when a number of lively boys get together, there was so much laughter and conversation that none of them noticed the passage of time.
“We’re getting near the lake, fellows!” suddenly called out Fred Bonnicastle. “I’m sure I had a glimpse of something that looked like water just then. Yes, it lies yonder—between the two big oaks.”
“And not over half a mile away at that!” added some one else, hopefully, for feet were commencing to drag.