CHAPTER XIII
Cobweb Weed
“Well! you certainly are the laziest bunch; you’d carry a whole bakery in your knapsacks rather than do any cooking–especially if there are girls around. Lazy as Ludlam’s dog you are! Next time–next time, I’ll set you to peeling potatoes.”
It was the chaffing voice of the Scoutmaster, Malcolm Seaver, which spoke, addressing some twenty scouts who were scattered about the vine-draped entrance to Snowbird Cave, where, yearly, the little gray-white junco birds–otherwise snow-birds–fluffy balls, with no heads to speak of, wintered among the low hemlocks near the cavern’s mouth and fed upon the spicy hemlock bark.
“I–I wonder if you could tell me of what breed Ludlam’s dog was, sir? If he could burn up daylight chasing his tail any better than this crowd can, lolling around on a picnic, he must be the limit.”
The answer came with the low, drawling laugh of Stud Bennett, otherwise Studart, brother to Jessie, the “merle’s” calling mate, who was himself playing fiddle-faddle in the sunshine, after a four-mile hike.
“Humph! Well, I’m off to locate a spring–where’s the blue bucket? When I get back you’ll have to turn to, you dummies, build a fire and unpack the commissariat–otherwise rolls by the dozen. The ‘duff’ and Frankforts are in the ‘Baby’, I guess.” The Scoutmaster shot a glance at a big, brown duffle bag reposing on a mound, capable of containing ten bags of rations, each pertaining to individual scouts on a long hike, yet hardly sufficient to transport the “cates”, the luncheon for eighteen Camp Fire Girls and twenty scouts, plus a couple of invited guests, on a Together picnic.
“Are there any boys and girls who are dying to come with me, to prospect for water?” he put forth alluringly, to the rhythmic swing of the big water bucket in his right hand, painted bright blue.
There was an instant volunteering flutter among certain green-clad girls and lads in khaki, breezing up from the grass where they had languished; others held back.
“I’d rather explore the cave–I love creepy caves–and we haven’t been half through it yet,” said Pemrose Lorry.
Forthwith Stud, the Henkyl Hunter, decided that cave-exploiting was the pastime for him; there was rarely a younger boy–Studart was barely fifteen–who did not become the captive knight of this older girl with the sky in her eyes under jet-black lashes!