Bob, having gobbled his share, was trying to lick the hot skillet!
“Do you know what we forgot?” exclaimed Ned, thunder-struck. “Coffee!”
“But if I’d had to make coffee you’d have had to wait a lot longer for dinner. It takes an age to boil water over a fire like that one,” explained Hal.
“Well, bacon and potatoes and slough water are good enough—in a hurry,” admitted Ned.
Bob cleaned the skillet and Ned the plates—the grease yielding before a liberal rubbing with wet mud—and Hal, digging a hole at the water’s edge, buried the fruit-jar containing their supply of butter, so that it should not melt too much.
This precaution having been taken, and the camp tidied, Hal mused, looking up toward the raft:
“I wonder if we’ve caught any fish, yet.”
“It’s too soon to go and see,” replied Ned, wistfully. “About four o’clock will be time enough to try. Let’s visit Sam and Joe.”
“Come on,” agreed Hal.