His remark was aimed at Paul Jones, fussing and shaking, pretending to be all in a shiver with the cold while he leaned half-dressed over the campfire. "Might wiggle a little more wood up here. Can't afford to burn up the back-log, just getting breakfast!" Billy added.
Worth had been up and fully dressed a quarter of an hour or more. With Phil's help he had the morning meal actively in course of preparation. It was but little later than sunrise. The air was still cool. Dave was finishing his hasty toilet in the tent and Jones half-heartedly was trying to do the same while crouching as close to the fire as he very well could do without falling in.
"Great Scott, Bill!" protested Paul in answer to Worth's call for firewood. "Great Scott and also gee whiz! I'll bet I've toted twenty-seven cords of wood into this camp already, and we've been here just two days. I hope if ever you are married your wife will be descended from four generations of railroad firemen and your coal house will be half a mile from where you live! I just do, by ginger!"
And although Paul's words were decidedly softened by his tone of pretended personal injury and suffering, Billy called, "Gangway!" in a manner far more peremptory than sympathetic in reply. Up he came rushing with the coffee pot and, uncertain whether some of its cold contents might not be intended for his bare shoulders, Paul sprang quickly to one side. Quite sprightly then, he completed his dressing in almost less time than it takes to say it, and until breakfast was announced gathered and carried up firewood as if he had whole train-loads to collect and only a day in which to do it.
On part of all the boys there was the liveliest activity this Monday morning. At last and at last, after all their months of planning, after all the preparations and their long journey they were ready to explore the secrets of the vast Ship woods. All talk of the automobile races, all thought of the Chosen Trio's pursuit, thus far so ridiculously fruitless, were forgotten. True, Mr. Gaines and his loving friends were in Queensville; and true, that small city lay almost twenty miles distant. Still what do twenty miles count with an automobile at one's disposal? Yet even this thought did not more than once occur to the four chums.
"Three stones piled one upon another to mark the place." Once more the Auto Boys found themselves repeating many times the words which had been the means of bringing them to the great woods. Once more they speculated upon the probability of being able, in all this broad expanse of timbered hills and dales, to find that one small spot where years before the marker of stones had been erected.
Their search, it had been decided long ago, should be pursued systematically. To roam through and through the woods, going at random in this or that direction, would almost certainly result in a complete failure to locate the object of their trip. The danger of becoming hopelessly lost, far in the forest's interior, was still another excellent reason for keeping steadily within lines of march agreed upon before starting.
"Remember," said Billy Worth, "that the bark has the most moss on the north side of the trees. Remember—"
"Oh, fiddle, Billy! You remember that there'll be the hungriest quartette around here to-night that you ever had to cook for," broke in Paul Jones. "Nobody's going to get lost!"
"Well, you remember, young fellow, that you're to be back to camp in time to go for milk before supper," cried out Dave MacLester.