The plates and bowls were of tin; the knives, forks, and spoons were iron; but how luxurious it all seemed to the guest of the occasion! How wonderfully good everything tasted, and how the big man beside him heaped his plate with pork and beans, potatoes swimming in gravy, boiled cabbage, fresh bread cut in slices two inches thick, and actually butter to spread on it! After these came a huge pan of crullers and dozens of dried-apple pies.
How anxiously the men watched him eat, how often they pushed the tin can of brown sugar towards him to make sure that his bowl of milkless tea should be sufficiently sweetened, and how pleased they were when he passed his plate for a second helping of pie!
"You'll do, lad; you'll do!" shouted Buck Ranlet, delighted at this evidence that the camp cookery was appreciated. "You've been brought up right, and taught to know a good thing when you see it. I can tell by the way you eat."
After supper Alaric was conducted to a blanket-covered bench near the big fire outside, and allowed to relate the outline of his story to an audience that listened with intense interest, and then he was put to bed beside Bonny, who was already fast asleep. When Buck Ranlet picked up his guest's coat, that had fallen to the floor, and a baseball rolled from one of its pockets, the big logger exclaimed, softly:
"Bless the lad! He's a genuine out-and-out boy, after all! To think of his travelling through the mountains with no outfit but a baseball! If that isn't boy all over, then I don't know!"
CHAPTER XXXVI
IN A NORTHWEST LOGGING CAMP
The next day being Sunday, the camp lay abed so late that when Alaric awoke from his long night of dreamless sleep the sun was more than an hour high, and streaming full into the open doorway of Buck Ranlet's shack. For nearly a minute the boy lay motionless, striving to recall what had happened and where he was. Then, as it all came to him, and he realized that he had escaped from the mountain, with its terrors, its cold, and its hunger, and had reached a place of safety, good-will, and plenty, he heaved a deep sigh of content. His sigh was echoed by another close beside him, and then Bonny's voice said:
"I'm so glad you are awake, Rick, for I want you to tell me all about it. I've been trying to puzzle it out for myself, but can't be really sure whether I know anything about last night or only dreamed it all. Didn't somebody get us something to eat?"