"You may," laughed Reade. "As for me, I've flirted with my breakfast so long this morning, and have taken so many chances of not having any, that now I'm going to make sure of that first of all."
So Dick himself attended to the horse. Dan was already gathering firewood, which Dave piled into the stove in the wagon.
Soon water was boiling, coffee was being ground, tins opened, and a general air of comfort and good fellowship prevailed in that forest.
"We'll have to give you the palm for being a good trainer, Dick," declared Tom, taking a bite out of a sandwich and following it with a sip of coffee, "but you have one short-coming. You're no fortune teller. So, as you can't foretell the future, I vote that, after this, we breakfast in the morning and swim later in the day. It would affect my heart in time, if we had to battle every morning for our breakfast in this fashion."
"I can't get over the impudence of those tramps," muttered Darry, as he set his coffee cup down. "They couldn't hope to get away with the horse and wagon and sell them in these days of the rural telephone. They couldn't use our clothing for themselves. And yet they stole all we had in order to get hold of our food. At that, they didn't care what became of us, or how long we had to travel about in these woods without food or clothing."
"The tramps must be optimists," laughed Prescott. "Probably they had an abiding faith that all would turn out well with us, and so proposed to help themselves to what they needed."
"I wonder whether they'll fool with our outfit again," pondered
Tom grimly, "if they come across it in our absence."
"I don't know," said Dick gravely. "As you've already reminded me, I am no foreteller of the future."