"Great governor! look at the fine ham hanging from the rafters, with strings of garlic, and all sorts of things!" he cried out. "You rummage around in closets, Max, while I'm climbing up, and grabbing that same smoked pork. Say, the country is saved, and those poor girls can have something worth while to eat. I've learned a new way to fry ham without even a pan; though chances are we'll be able to pick up something along that line in the kitchen here."
They did, and all sorts of other things besides, which Max fancied the girls could make use of, and which were really in danger of being lost, if the cabin was carried away. He rooted in every cupboard, secured a lot of dishes and tinware, knives, forks and spoons, even a loaf of bread and some cake that he found in a japanned tin box high up on the shelf of a closet, coffee, sugar, and condensed milk, butter, potatoes, onions and a lot of other things too numerous to mention, but which attracted the attention of the hungry boys.
Bandy-legs was fairly bubbling over with delight, and kept declaring that it was the greatest picnic ever known. All the perils of the past had apparently vanished from his mind, and he was as happy as any one could be over the prospect of enjoying a regular camp meal by the glow of a jolly woods fire.
"Guess we'd better hold up about now, Max," he went on to say, when they had piled the stuff in the boat until it looked as though moving day had come around again, or an eviction was in progress.
"You're right there, Bandy-legs, because if we kept on much more there wouldn't be standing room for the two of us, and you'd have to swim alongside. So let's call it a day's work and quit. Besides, we'll have our hands full getting our stuff ashore. You stand ready to spell me if I play out, will you?"
"I'd like to have a chance at that sculling racket, anyhow, Max; never took a turn at the same, and so you'd better let me try it when we get in closer to shore."
"Only too glad to fix you up," replied the other, as he started to work.
It turned out all right, and they managed to reach land about as close to the spot where the camp had been pitched as it was possible to get. When the two came staggering along, laden down with all sorts of stuff, there was a whoop from Steve and Toby, who stopped work on the shack to run and help them.
"Well, this is great shakes, for a fact!" exclaimed the former, as he relieved Max of a part of his load; "I declare if you haven't fetched enough junk to fit us up in housekeeping for a year. And I guess the little old lady won't be sorry, either, because p'raps you've been and saved some of her property that would have gone floating down the river to-night."
Mrs. Jacobus smiled and nodded her head when she saw what the boys had found.