“It’s too comfortable altogether,” Baxter said, as they congregated in the kitchen, unpacking the supplies they had brought along. “We won’t feel as if we were camping out at all.”
“You have my full permission to spread a blanket out in the grass, my child, if this is too rich for your blood,” Fitz remarked as he perched himself on the table and proceeded to slice bacon. “Me for the comforts of home, though, when they’re around. Camping out is all very nice when you’ve got to; but I fail to see the fun in waking up so stiff you can hardly move, with a cold in your head, sand all through your clothes, and covered from head to foot with nasty, itching bites from black flies or mosquitoes.”
“Oh, come off, little one!” Buckhart put in. “It’s clear you’re not wise to the real joys of camping out when you talk like that. Who cares for such little things as black flies and sand when you’re lying on a bed of balsam boughs, wrapped up in a good blanket, with your feet to the fire and three or four good chums around to talk to or not, as you like? Nothing but the stars above your head, no walls to keep you from breathing all of God’s clean air you can get into your lungs. I tell you, tender one, that’s the best sort of a life to live. You hear me gently warble!”
“Sounds good,” Fitz retorted airily; “but how about the times when there aren’t any stars above your head and when God’s clean rain washes you off that nice balsam bed and gives you a bath when you’d a heap sight rather stay dirty. Not for this child! I have a foolish preference for a roof over me and some kind of a mattress, even if it’s only corn husks, to sleep on.”
Buckhart was about to make an emphatic rejoinder when he caught Dick’s laughing eyes.
“You’re wasting your breath, old fellow,” the latter said quickly. “Fitz is awfully fond of hearing himself talk, but don’t ever ask him to go camping if you don’t expect to be taken up.”
“Slander,” retorted the slim chap; “vile slander!”
He dived into the basket of provisions and brought forth a bottle wrapped in a newspaper.
“Pickles!” he exclaimed, holding it up. “Joy of my heart! How blessed of you, Richard, to remember my fondness——”
He stopped abruptly as his quick eye caught something on the printed page which was around the bottle. For a moment there was silence. Then his eyes widened alarmingly and his whole face took on an expression of mock horror as he fixed an accusing glare on the placid countenance of Archie McCormick.