'And you remember his dodge for drying his toggery?' said Dick.
'Rather,' returned the Raven; 'fire under a cage o' sticks.'
'Right,' said Dick; 'and there's a copse ahead. We'll halt in it, and dry ourselves.'
They marched briskly for the copse, hung their haversacks on the branch of a small, low-growing oak, and went to work at building a fire. It was no easy task, but by searching in corners where thick bushes had turned aside the worst of the downpour, they found odd handfuls of dry stuff to start their blaze. Luckily the matches had been in Dick's haversack, and were perfectly dry. A small dead larch afforded them twigs and sticks when once the fire was started, and Dick chopped the dead tree into small, handy pieces, and fed the flames with them. They did not want a lasting fire, but a heap of hot ashes, and this would be soonest afforded by small pieces of wood.
While Dick was busy with the tomahawk, Chippy attacked a thicket of tall, straight-growing hazels with his knife, and cut an armful of the springy rods. As soon as the fire burned down, the boys took the rods, sharpened each end, took an end each, bent the rod into an arch, and drove the ends deeply into the soft earth. In this way they had soon covered the fire in, as it were, with a great basket. Then they stripped off their sodden raiment, wrung it out, and spread it over the bent hazel-rods to dry.
The excellence of the plan was soon manifest. Clouds of steam began to rise from the wet clothes, and promised that they would soon be dry. But it was cool after the rain, and the clothes hid the fire, and the scouts felt no inclination to sit under a waggon, as their great leader had done; they felt more inclined to move about a little to warm themselves.
'It's jolly cold compared with the heat before the thunderstorm,' said Dick.
'Ain't it?' said Chippy. 'I'll race ye to th' end o' the copse an' back. That'll warm us a bit.'
'Right,' said Dick. 'Let's cut along where the larches and firs are. It'll be fun sprinting over the fir-needles, and soft to the feet. Where do we run to?'
'The big beech yonder,' said the Raven. 'I'll count. We'll go at three.'