"Hay was good enough for me last night, suh!" declared the Southern boy; "but I've got a hunch I can sleep just as sound on balsam."
"Hemlock for mine every time!" announced Lil Artha.
Then there was a bustling time as the entire seven scouts started to break off small branches and twigs from the adjacent trees, laying them in piles until it looked as though they had secured enough for their purpose.
The beds were arranged in something like a circle around the fire, and acting on the advice of Elmer, who had been on the cattle range and knew what was right, each sleeper expected to keep his feet toward the fire.
"Looks a heap like a big cart-wheel," observed Lil Artha.
"The fire is the hub, and each scout a spoke, that's right, suh," Chatz agreed.
Landy acted as though he would never get enough of the fragrant browse. Long after the others had stopped gathering it, he continued. When they joked him about being greedy when there was no price to pay, he had an answer ready.
"I'm a whole lot heavier than anybody else, don't you know?" he told them. "And on that account I ought to have a higher pile under me. Besides, I always did like to gather things in."
"We'll remember that, Landy," threatened Lil Artha, "the next time we need a big supply of firewood. You've fixed it up good and tight, and you'll find us the most obliging lot of scouts east of the Rockies."
After considerable fussing and joshing, they managed finally to get "fixed." As none of them had slept too soundly on the preceding night, owing to their strange environment, and the wild alarm that sounded when Johnny's chicken-thief trap was sprung, the boys were both weary and drowsy.