“It is almost morning, and now that we are wide awake and up, we might as well stay so,” answered Garry. “First thing we do this morning is to get a few more boards and fashion a door for this shack. Also I saw some heavy screening yesterday,—you notice that all the windows are screened,—and we will tack a double thickness of that over the window. That will afford us some slight protection against the invasion of more friends such as the one that paid us an unwelcome call.”
In a little while the camp was starting to come to life. First appeared the cookee who favored the boys with a knowing grin, then came the cook, who immediately started the work of getting breakfast. Finally, struggling into their clothes as they came yawning through the doors, appeared the lumberjacks.
Garry cautioned his chums to say nothing for the moment about their experience of the night. They passed several moments in chatting with those of the lumberjacks with whom they thought they might make friends that would perhaps stand them in good stead later on. Garry was telling a funny story and at its conclusion the men burst into a roar of laughter.
The red headed cookee happened to be passing just as the men began to laugh, and he looked sharply at the boys. While he was serving them breakfast in the smaller room,—they happened to be alone as Barrows had not yet arisen,—he remarked:
“Understand you chaps didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“No, we didn’t,” answered Garry, looking up quickly.
“Well, better luck next time,” and still grinning the cookee shambled out of the room.
“Well!” exploded Garry. “If that chap didn’t go and give himself clean away first shot out of the gun!”
“Looks as though your hunch about its being a part of the campaign of ruthlessness was a fact,” said Dick with a laugh.
“Only question in my mind,” said Phil, “is did he think of it himself as a sort of a practical joke, or was he put up to it by Barrows?”