Joel Winthrop had his own shack, a primitive affair, made by leaning a number of poles against a rocky cliff eight or ten feet high. Over the poles were placed a number of pine boughs, and boughs were also placed on the floor of the structure, for bedding purposes.
"Come right in and make yourselves at home," he said cheerily, after lighting a camp lantern and hanging it on a notch of one of the poles. "Nothing more to do to-night, so we might as well go to sleep."
"The boys can sleep with you; I'll stay outside where I can get the fresh air," said Gilroy, and wrapping himself in a blanket he went to rest at the foot of a neighboring tree, with Andrews beside him.
A youth not used to roughing it might have found the flooring of the shack rather a hard bed. But Dale and Owen thought nothing of this. The last day on the river had been a busy one, and soon each was in the land of dreams, neither of them being disturbed in the slightest by the loud snoring around them—for lumbermen in camp do snore, and that most outrageously—why, nobody can tell, excepting it may be as a warning to wild beasts to keep away!
The next morning the sun came up as brightly as ever. Long before that time the camp was astir, and from the cook's shanty floated the aroma of broiled mackerel, fried potatoes, and coffee.
"That smells like home!" exclaimed Owen and started for a spring near by, where there was a small tub, in which the men washed, one after another.
A table of rough deal boards had been erected under the trees, with a long bench on either side. There was no tablecloth, but the table was as clean as water and soap could make it. Each man was provided with a tin cup, a tin plate, a knife, a fork, and a spoon, and each was served his portion by the cook or the cook's assistant. If the man wanted more he usually rapped on his empty cup or plate until he was supplied.
The cook was a burly negro named Jeff, his full name being Jefferson Jackson. Jeff was usually good-natured, but when the men hurried him too much for their victuals he would often growl back at them.
"Fo' de lan' sake!" he would bellow. "Say, can't you gib dis chile no chance 'tall? Yo' lobsters dun got no bottom to yo' stummicks. T'ink I'se heah to fill up de hull ob de 'Nobscot Ribber? Yo' dun eat like yo' been starvin' all summah."
"Jeff wants to turn us into skeletons," cried one of the young lumbermen, winking at the others. "He's got a contract to furnish a Boston museum with 'em."