“The next thing for us to see about is how under the sun will we cook all these delicious bass Billy’s got ready?” remarked Felix.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you they missed one frying-pan,” remarked Billy, exultantly; “it chanced to be hanging from a nail I drove in a tree, and they couldn’t have seen it. By making relays we can do our cooking in that.”
“Besides, we’re two shy of our original number,” added Horace.
“What would we have done without any skillet at all, Tom?” asked Billy.
“Oh! there are ways of doing it by heating a flat stone, and cooking the fish on that,” replied Tom. “Then some old hunters who won’t bother to carry a frying-pan into the woods with them manage by toasting the meat or fish at the end of a long sliver of wood. Given the fish and a hot fire, the fellow who couldn’t invent some way of cooking would deserve to go hungry.”
“That’s right,” agreed Josh. “And everybody notice that it’s going to take more than a little thing like this to stall the scouts who are up to their business.”
Indeed, there did seem to be an unusual spirit of animation among the boys that evening. Every fellow was anxious to assist in getting supper ready, so that after all it began to look at one time like a case of “too many cooks spoiling the broth.”
When the first batch of fish had been browned they were kept hot on a clean stone close to the fire while the other lot was cooked. As their supply of coffee had gone together with numerous other things, the boys had to drink cold water for supper. Loud were the lamentations over this.
“The smell of coffee, bacon, or fried onions is what always makes it seem like camping out,” declared Josh, sadly; “and now we haven’t got a single one of those lovely things left. Our breakfast is going to be a pretty limited one; and as for other meals to-morrow, where they are going to come from is a question I’d like somebody to settle.”
“Listen,” said Tom. “I’m going to get you up at daylight, Josh.”