The day was broken up by the occurrence, but while the clothes dried the boys enjoyed themselves drinking coffee and talking about the experience, throwing in a joke now and then, since the serious side of it had passed.
“Now that we’ve had a tenderfoot spoil our day’s fishing,” said Frank, “what do you say if we go out on some different kind of exploring to-morrow?”
The other boys acquiesced at once. They would have agreed to any suggestion for activity which might have been offered. They were up here to have some fun and not to decorate the inside of the camp. So, going over the various things which might be done, they finally decided on leaving fishing aside for a day or two and, taking their firearms, go into the mountains to the south of the lake, mountains which looked down upon them in all their bleak whiteness from the front door of the cabin.
Two wrist watches and the alarm clock were all brought into accord, the boys setting their watches by the clock, laughingly remarking that the chances were that the alarm clock was most nearly right.
Instead of putting on pieces of the dry wood, they tried a large log of the green wood which they had chopped previously, and enjoyed, all during the late evening, the crackling of the log as the water boiled out, sometimes making steam within the wood-cells, snapping with minute explosions.
It was before daybreak again when they rose from their bunks, their clothing all perfectly dry, and rushed through the washing of their faces and hands and the preparations for breakfast. Taking turns at cooking breakfast had been the agreement, though the boy who was cook got many criticisms on the results of his culinary efforts. No mercy was shown in this regard. However, it was remarked by Lanky Wallace that none of the boys failed to eat every scrap of food that was placed before him, it mattered not what he had previously said about the cook nor what he said about the food while he was eating it.
“Well,” called out Lanky as he devoured his part of a rather sumptuous meal for the morning’s start, “do we leave a fire here to-day so that Buster can have a place to dry his clothes when we get back?”
This brought a storm of protest from that young man.
“I guess, since we have enough wood cut to last us a while, we might as well leave a fire,” remarked Frank when the miniature tempest had subsided. “I don’t know that I like the idea of leaving the place with a fire in it, but if we use dry wood that won’t crackle out of the fireplace too much, we might take a chance.”
Thus it was that dry logs were placed on the great fire in the living room just prior to the boys grabbing up their guns and starting on the day’s voyage of adventure.