“What’s the use in being in such a hurry?” demanded John, who was watching the frying-pan very closely.
“It’s always a good thing to get the camp work done quickly mornings and evenings,” replied the leader of the party. “We’ve got a long trip ahead, and I’d like to average twenty-five miles a day for a while, if I could. Maybe we’ll have to content ourselves with fifteen miles a good many days. The best way is to get an early start and make a long drive, and an early camp. Then get your packs off as early as you can, and let your horses rest—that’s always good doctrine.”
“Well, one thing,” said Jesse, “I hope the mosquitoes won’t be any worse than they are now.”
“Well,” Uncle Dick replied, “when we get higher up the nights will get cool earlier, but we’ll have mosquitoes all the way across, that’s pretty sure. But you fellows mustn’t mind a thing like that. We’ve all got our mosquito bars and tents, and very good ones too.”
“No good for fight mosquito,” said Moise, grinning. “He’s too many.”
“Oh, go on, Moise, they don’t hurt you when they bite you,” said John.
“Nor will they hurt you so badly after a time,” Uncle Dick said to him. “You get used to it—at least, to some extent. But there is something in what Moise has told you—don’t fight mosquitoes too hard, so that you get excited and nervous over it. Don’t slap hard enough to kill a dog—just brush them off easy. Take your trouble as easy as you can on trail—that’s good advice. This isn’t feather-bed work, exactly; but then I don’t call you boys tenderfeet, exactly, either. Now go and finish the beds up for the night before it gets too dark.”
Jesse crawled into the back part of the tent and fished out three specially made nets, each of cheese-cloth sewed to a long strip of canvas perhaps six feet long and two and one-half feet wide. At each corner of this canvas a cord was sewed, so that it could be tied to a tent-pole, or to a safety-pin stuck in the top of the tent. Then the sides, which were long and full, could be tucked in at the edges of the bed, so that no mosquitoes could get in. Each boy had his own net for his own bed, so that, if he was careful in getting in under the net, he would be pretty sure of sleeping free from the mosquitoes, no matter how bad they were. Uncle Dick had a similar net for his own little shelter-tent. As for Moise, he had a head-net and a ragged piece of bar which he did not use half the time, thinking it rather beneath him to pay too much attention to the small nuisances.
“You’ll better go to bed pretty soon, young mans,” said Moise, speaking to his young friends after they had finished their supper. “If those fly bite me, he’ll got sick of eating so much smoke, him. But those fly, he like to bite little boy.” And he laughed heartily, as he saw the young companions continually brushing at their faces.