Chums of the Camp Fire

by Lawrence J. Leslie

When poor shivering Bandy-legs saw that change in the expression of her thin face he experienced the most delightful sensation. It was similar to what a fellow might pass through when he had been hauled up from over a precipice after hanging to a bush the roots of which were slowly but surely giving way.

"Why, is it you, Max!" the woman exclaimed, her face breaking out with a smile that made her look quite like a different person; "I'm real glad to see you up at the farm. And if this other boy is a friend of yours, why, of course I'll have to forgive him for hurting my poor old Carlo. Perhaps he had to do it, as he says; and my husband does say the dog is getting a little ugly in his old age. We'll forget it then. What's your friend's name, Max? Seems to me I ought to know him."

"He's Doctor Griffin's boy, Clarence," Max hastened to reply; "and as good a fellow as any one would want to know; but he always does object to letting dogs take a piece out of his legs, and that's why he carries that ammonia gun with him most of the time."

"Oh! I thought I had seen him before, but I wasn't sure," she observed, nodding her head; "but then I should have remembered so remark—that is, such a good-looking boy. And I'm going to begin delivering eggs at his house on my very next trip to Carson, too. That's queer, isn't it? Clarence, shake hands with me, and excuse me for seeming to be angry. We have tramps come here so often, and they always shy stones at Carlo, so that when I heard him howling I thought some of that tribe had hurt him. I can let you have all the eggs you want, just laid, and the richest Jersey milk you ever saw. Come up to the house, both of you."

It was all smooth sailing now, and Bandy-legs was glad he had stood up for his rights. He would never have held his own respect had he allowed that beast to get a nip at him while able to fight against it, no matter whose dog he might be.

Once at the farmhouse and they were treated like honored guests. Mrs. Ketcham, as though desirous of making amends for her first outburst, insisted on their accepting a bumper glass of fresh buttermilk each; and this was accompanied by several real home-made doughnuts such as the boys had seldom tasted before.

She loaned them a covered pail so that they could carry the milk from her prize Jersey herd of cows back to camp; while several dozen snowy white eggs from Leghorn fowls were placed in a basket, and so guarded that they could not be broken by any ordinary little jolt.

It was just as well that these precautions were taken, Max thought; for he knew some of the failings of his chum, and one of them was in the line of making frequent stumbles, when there was the least reason for tripping over roots or stones that might lie in the path.

When Max and Bandy-legs finally started back to camp their pockets fairly bulged with winter apples that had been kept over in the cool cellar belonging to the farm, where fruit and vegetables were held in stock through the cold months of the winter.

"Turned out a lucky day after all, didn't it?" remarked Max, laughingly, as they both walked along, each with one hand free to take care of the apple they were munching at the time.