"You can't bake turnips," objected Howell Purdy.
"Well! they're good raw, aren't they?" demanded the eager Fred.
"It's a great old scheme," declared Jimmy Ailshine, otherwise "Shiner." "Let's get at it at once. Skeets Brody has his ax. Come on!"
And the excited boys trooped away from the beach and left the potatoes under the coals of the campfire to finish cooking.
CHAPTER XVI
HOT POTATOES
Bobby and Fred had already become leaders to a degree, with the boys of their own age at Rockledge School. This suggestion of the red-haired one about building a hut was accepted with enthusiasm by the fifteen others in the present crowd.
They trooped up into the thick grove that crowned the summit of the rocky island. Bobby and Fred had been on many camping expeditions at home, along the banks of Plunkit Creek. They wasted no time in discussing how they should build a shelter with the materials at hand.
"Leave it to us, and we'll go ahead and show you how to make a nice shack," promised Bobby, when the others began to gabble as to how it should be done.
"Good idea!" cried Pee Wee. "Let's elect Bobby Blake, captain.