After the meal was over came the task which was not welcomed any too cheerfully. A multitude of greasy tin plates and cups lay piled up near the creek and the pails of water were ready. Ted asked for volunteers, and a few of the boys helped the two leaders do the washing and drying. Most of the boys were content to lie around and chatter. When the camp work was finished they all gathered around the fires while Ted addressed them.
“Now, fellows,” he began, when he had claimed their attention. “Tonight is rather an informal time and we’re just getting acquainted. Tomorrow we’ll settle down to real business. Up to now I don’t even know the names of all of you, but I’ll get on to them pretty quickly. In order to get the best results out of our encampment we’ll have to have good discipline and willing workers. For instance, we’ll have to have a wood-gathering committee, a fire committee, a cooking committee, a water committee, and a dishwashing committee. Some of these committees won’t be as popular as others, I know, but we won’t be on the same committees all of the time. Frequent changes will give us all a chance to work at something different. Buck and I will take our share of the work along with the rest of you.”
“That makes me think of something else. Some of you are calling me Mr. Thorn and calling Buck, Mr. Dalton. That’s very nice, but we want to be all fellows here together and so we are just plain Ted and Buck to you. We’ll all work together and have a good time. Now about the tents: we have four of them and that means that there will be five in a tent. We have plenty of room, and Buck will sleep in one of the tents and I in another. For the other two tents I’ll appoint a captain and he is to be in complete charge of that tent. To him you will make any complaint or suggestion and he can take it up with me. We’ll want to go to bed early at night so that we’ll get plenty of good sleep. We’ll be up early in the mornings.”
“Why didn’t we put the tents up in between the trees?” a boy asked.
“Because there will be such things while we are here as thunder storms,” smiled Ted. “And if we do have them we want to be out in the open and not under a tree which might be struck by lightning and fall over!”
This was a thought which had not as yet struck any of them and for a moment there was complete silence. They were all young boys and the woods experience was new to them. Thunder storms had been witnessed by most of them from a secure house or a comfortable bed and the thought that they would now be almost exposed to the elements was somewhat staggering. They looked around and up into the blackness of the crouching mountains.
“Gee, it does get some dark up here, doesn’t it?” inquired one boy, in an awe-struck voice.
The circle of light from the fires was not a large one and the blackness around them seemed an immensity which held untold things mysteriously unpleasant. Buck laughed to reassure them.
“Yes, they don’t have any street lights up here,” he said. “The animals like dark nights!”
“Animals!” cried another boy. “Are there any animals up here? Do they call the water Bear Creek on purpose!”