“We won’t try to carry any tent, will we, Tom?”
“That’s been settled,” came the ready answer. “At the meeting when I was elected patrol leader we discussed this trip, and it took like wildfire. In the first place we haven’t a tent worth carrying; and then again it would make too heavy a load. All of us have been studying up on how to make brush shelters when in the woods, and even if it rains I think we’ll get on fairly well.”
“Each scout has a rubber poncho, which can be made mighty useful in a pinch, I should think,” said Carl. “Then besides our clothes and a blanket, we’ll have to carry a cooking outfit, as light as it can be made, and what grub we expect to eat up.”
“Oh! most of that we’ll rustle for on the way,” the patrol leader told him. “We’ll find farms scattered along our route, and it’ll be easy enough to buy eggs, milk, perhaps a home-cured ham, some chickens, and other things like bread and butter.”
“That’s a great scheme, Tom, and it makes my mouth fairly water just to talk about it. Sounds like an army foraging, only instead of taking things we’ll expect to pay cash for them. How many are going along on the hike?”
“I have yet to hear of any member of the Black Bear Patrol who dreams of backing out; and there are several others who’ve told me they hope to join us. The way it looks now only a bad case of sickness would be able to keep any scout from being in line on that wonderful morning when Lenox Troop marches out of town headed for Big Bear Mountain.”
“One good thing, we don’t have to pack any heavy guns along with us,” declared Carl.
“No, that’s absolutely forbidden,” the patrol leader declared; “we can take a fishing rod if we feel like it, because there’s a chance to pick up some trout or bass before we come back on the down-river boat ten days later.”
“I like that idea of making the return trip by water,” Carl continued. “It will be great after so much tramping and camping. Besides, some of the boys have never been fifteen miles up the river before, and so the trip is going to be a picnic for them.”
“Come over to-night and do your cramming for the exam with me,” suggested Tom.