"Come along this way and we'll soon have a jolly blaze started," said Max, who was accustomed to acting as leader, though never at any time becoming officious to an extent that might be displeasing.
There was plenty of good wood handy, and certainly those lads knew every little trick connected with building fires; so that in a very short time the cheery flames were jumping merrily upward, and a genial warmth was disseminated that felt unusually pleasant to the boy who had commenced shivering in his wet clothes.
"Now peel off right away, and we'll see about drying your duds!" Max told him.
"Y-y-you might p-p-put on my sweater while we're d-d-doing the same," added Toby, who was as generous a boy as could be found in a day's journey afield.
"That's kind of you, Toby, and if you think you won't need it right away, guess I ought to accept. You see I ain't used to prancing around in April without my clothes on. Hang it on that branch, Max; it'll be close enough to steam without getting' scorched. How long will it take to dry my shirt out, d'ye think?"
"Oh! perhaps only a matter of fifteen minutes or so," replied the other, as he proceeded to arrange all the other belongings of the unlucky chum on adjacent bushes until, as Bandy-legs declared, it looked like an "Irish wash-day."
Having donned Toby's gray sweater Steve did not feel so badly. He kept turning around by the fire, first warming one side and then the other, and all the while dancing up and down so as to keep his blood in good circulation; for Max had told him to do this, and surely Max knew what was best.
Toby kept the fire going by feeding fresh fuel from time to time. A fire was one of the things Toby certainly loved. Whenever he took the time to ponder over past events that had marked the companionship of these four lads, the various campfires they had shared in common stood out as oases in a desert. Toby was apt to figure past happenings as connected with the time "we had that dandy blaze under the twisted hemlock"; or "that night I built the champion cooking fire any campers ever had along."
By degrees Steve's apparel dried sufficiently for him to get into it again. He did not look very spruce and clean though, after his recent immersion, for the mud had dried. Steve had the appearance of a tramp, as Bandy-legs assured him, knowing that the other was as a rule addicted to taking especial pains with his clothes, pressing them out every week so that the creases would show at the proper angles, and all that nonsense.
"Well, when we get home it's apt to be dusk, anyway," said reckless Steve; "and we won't be meeting up with anybody on the road. If we do I'll dodge in the bushes till they get past. But notice that I got what I went after, boys!"