“Well, after all the hard luck we’ve had, I think we had a little good luck coming to us,” said Lee.
“Looks as though we had it, for the time being, anyway,” replied Bobby, as he sawed away at the can of peaches. “Here, you fellows pass your cups and I’ll fill them up with something that will make your hair curl.”
His friends were not slow in accepting this invitation, and they ate the luscious fruit with an appreciation sharpened by the privations they had been through. As Bobby remarked, “nobody knew how good things were until they hadn’t been able to get them for awhile.”
“I don’t know about you energetic Indians,” said Lee, when he had finished his peaches with a sigh, half of contentment and half of regret that they were gone, “but I’m just going to lie on the floor in front of that fire and loaf for awhile,” and suiting the action to the word, he threw himself down full length on the floor.
“I don’t know how Bobby feels,” said Fred, stretching luxuriously, “but I don’t think I’d mind a little rest myself. Most of that energy Lee’s talking about seems to have oozed out of me, someway.”
“Same here,” admitted Bobby. “And it’s funny, too. Outside of fighting alligators and panthers and ducking mudholes and quicksands, we haven’t really been doing anything the last few days.”
“A little more of this,” remarked Fred, “and a football game will seem quiet and restful. We’ll be going to sleep in the middle of it.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Bobby, “but I do know that it won’t be very long before I get to sleep to-night.”
“I suppose that whoever owns this cabin won’t thank us for eating his food,” went on Fred, as all three boys lay luxuriously at ease and gazed into the radiant heart of the fire.
“If we ever get out of this wilderness, I’ll find out who the place belongs to, and we’ll pay him for what we take,” said Lee; “I know if it were mine, I wouldn’t grudge the food to any one who needed it as badly as we did.”