"Whew! ain't I glad though I can camp on a night like this," said
Elephant, as started in to assist Larry get dinner ready.
"Just what I was thinking," added the chief cook, looking up from his task with a grin of pleasure. "I've got the peskiest hot room ever, on a still summer night like this is goin' to be; right under the roof, cold as a barn in winter; roasting in July and August. Say, I've often said they'd find me fried like a doughnut some fine morning; or froze stiff. This thing just suits me to a whiz."
"Heard Frank ask the Colonel to eat with us tonight; so I s'pose we're going to have an extra good spread," Elephant went on, scraping the potatoes industriously.
"That's what," chuckled the other. "You just leave it with your uncle, and the chances are you won't be disappointed much. I like good things myself. Used to say I was going to study to be a great chef when I grew up. May yet, who knows? What's Frank and Andy doing with that wire right now?"
"Why, you see the Colonel made 'em promise to connect him with the shed; so in case any row happened to be pulled off here he'd know it. Hard for him to understand he's out of the game with that crippled leg. He's been doing things all his life. I think he's the most wonderful old codger I ever knew."
"And that's where you're just about right, Larry. We must make him tell us some of his travel yarns tonight while we sit around," Elephant declared.
CHAPTER XIV
SOMETHING DOING
"I don't suppose any of you fellows have seen signs of the Chief and his men returning with any prisoners?" Frank asked, a little later, as he entered the shed to see how the arrangements for the evening spread were progressing.
"Nary a sign," replied Larry, who was bending over the stove, very red in the face, and yet grinning with pleasure; for he dearly loved to handle the pots and pans on an occasion like this, and was really a clever cook.