"Like sin. Say, Hannibal Cæsar Erastus Jones, will you do me a favor?" he asked, as the colored cook, who did the camp cooking, came from his tent.
"Ob co'se, Massa Dick. What am it?"
"Just go back there in the woods and bring me the pieces of that stone I broke with my toe. I want 'em for souveniers."
"Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Massa Dick, doan yo' go to playin' no tricks on me! Not jest at de present auspicious moment," and the colored man grinned broadly, showing a big expanse of white teeth, in an area of blackness.
"Why not, Rastus?"
"'Case as how de chicken am all done, an' if it ain't partook of immejeet——"
"Never mind those souveniers," said Dick. "We'll be with you in the twinkling of a flea's left hand eyelash," and he hopped into his tent, and began to dress, an example followed by the other boys.
"Humph!" murmured Hannibal Cæsar Erastus Jones, as he stood in the midst of the camp, rapidly blinking his eyes. "Fust I eber knowed a flea had a eyelash. But Massa Dick, he must know, 'case he's po'ful smart. But I 'spects I'd better git ready to serb up de grub, as dey calls it, 'case dey's allers pow'ful hungry when dey's been in swimmin'. Come t' t'ink ob it, dough, dey's most allers ready t' eat." And, chuckling to himself, Hannibal started toward the cook tent.
It did not take the boys long to dress, and as they emerged from the tents, their faces glowing with health, and bronzed from their life in the open, they were as fine a group of lads as you would meet in a day's travel, or, maybe a day and a half. They were all guests of Dick Hamilton, who, as had been his custom for several years past, had taken a crowd of his chums off to camp on the shores of Lake Dunkirk, a large body of water near Hamilton Corners, where Dick lived.
"Ah! Um! Smell that chicken!" murmured Bill Johnson, as he lifted his nose high in the air.