“Leave that to us, Billy,” Tom told him, confidently. “First of all every scout has a rubber poncho; two of these fastened together will make what they call a dog tent, under which a couple of fellows can tuck themselves, and keep the upper part of their bodies dry. Soldiers always use them.”
“Yes,” added Rob Shaefer; “and if it looks like rain to-night we’ll raise several brush shanties. By making use of the rubber blankets they can be kept as dry as a bone. Scouts must learn how to meet every possible condition that can rise up. That’s a big part of the fun, once you’ve begun to play the game.”
Billy seemed to be much impressed by this cheering intelligence; and even Horace smiled again, having recovered from his little panic.
It was almost three o’clock when the signal was given for a start. They took it slowly, and in the next two hours had probably covered little more than two miles. They were still loitering along the road that skirted the foot of the Big Bear Mountain.
“As we have some extra cooking to do to-night, boys,” the scout master told them, “we had better pull up here where we can get fine water. That’s one of the things you must always look for when camping, remember.”
Nothing pleased the scouts better than the prospect of stopping, and starting supper, for they were tired, and hungry in the bargain.
“If we didn’t want to eat these fowls right away,” Tom remarked, “I’d suggest that we bake them in a hot oven made in the ground. That’s the original cooker, you know. But it takes a good many hours to do it.”
“Another time, perhaps, when we’re stopping several days in one camp we’ll get some more chickens, Tom,” said the scout master, “and have you show us just how it is done. I’ve heard of the old-time scheme, but never tasted anything cooked in a mud oven.”
Everything looked calm and peaceful just then, but after all that was a deception and a snare. Even while the cooks were starting in to cut up the chickens so that the various parts might be placed in the two big frying-pans, after a certain amount of fat salt pork had been “tried out,” and allowed to get fiercely hot, Josh, who happened to be seen coming from the spring with a coffee-pot of water called out:
“Well, here comes your storm cloud all right, Horace; only instead of a ducking we stand a chance of getting a licking from another enraged tiller of the soil!”