Bread and tea were easy enough to prepare, but how were they going to cook the eels? Chippy had been enthusiastic over the delicious richness of fried eels, and there was the billy to fry them in, but what were they going to do for grease?
'A bit o' lard, now,' murmured Chippy.
'Wait a bit,' said Dick. 'I'll put you right, cook.'
He opened his haversack, and took out a small tin box. 'Here you are,' said Dick. 'Mutton fat. I boiled it down myself. Grand stuff to rub on your feet if you get a sore place, but we haven't wanted it yet.'
'No, we ain't tenderfeet,' grunted the Raven.
'Hope not,' said Dick. He opened the box and smelled the contents.
'Has it gone bad?' asked his companion.
'Not a bit of it,' replied the Wolf; 'sweet as a nut. Here's a lump for your pan.' And he dug out a piece of the solid mutton fat with his knife.
The eels were washed and skinned, and soon were hissing and spluttering delightfully in the mutton fat in the billy. The two biggest eels, weighing more than half a pound each, were treated in this manner, and proved quite as good as Chippy had promised. While the hungry scouts devoured them, some smaller ones were set on to boil, for the Raven had heard boiled eels were good also, though he hadn't tried them. So the billy was rubbed round and three parts filled with water, and on went some more eels in a new form of cookery. When it came to the test of eating, the scouts did not think the boiled were quite so tasty as the fried, but they vanished before their raging appetites, and the two boys ate every eel they had sniggled.
They built up their fire and turned in before the daylight had gone, for they were fatigued by the long journey they had made that day.