Josh was already busy with the fire. He had long since graduated in this department of woodcraft, and knew about all there was going in connection with fires of every description.
Then, too, he could cook in a way to make the mouths of his chums fairly water. Josh had a way of browning things so cleverly that they were unusually attractive, where so many boys more careless would frequently burn whatever they had on the fire, and in a happy-go-lucky fashion dub it “pot-luck.”
“One thing sure,” said Jack, as they sat around waiting for the call to supper, “we’re a lucky set to have two such willing workers with the pots and pans as Buster and Josh here.”
“That’s right,” declared George, agreeable for once; “it would be hard to find their match, search where you will. What one lacks the other makes up for, and the opposite way around too. And we want them to know we appreciate their services, don’t we, Jack?”
“Come, now, no taffy, George,” said Josh, though his eyes sparkled under praise from such a source; “as they used to say in olden days, beware the Greeks who come bearing gifts. And when you get to praising anything there must be a deep motive back of it.”
“There is,” assented George frankly, “a very deep motive, for I’m hollow all the way down to my heels, seems like. Sure the grub must be done by now, Josh. That’s a good fellow, ring the bell for us to gather round.”
Whenever these lads were sitting about the camp fire they always had plenty of fun on tap. If “jabs” were given at times it was done with such good-natured chaff that no one could get provoked.
So they started to discuss the supper Josh had prepared. Meanwhile Buster had managed to dry himself after a fashion by turning around near the fire, presenting first one side and then another to the heat. He likened himself to a roast fowl on the spit, and jokingly asked the others how they would have him served.
“After I’m all through eating my share of the excellent mess Josh here has provided for us,” Buster remarked, when his mouth chanced to be empty, which was not often, by the way, “I know what I mean to do.”
“Oh, anybody can guess that the first shot out of the locker,” George asserted; “that is if they know what a fellow you are for remembering things. Of course you mean to smash some of these rotten stumps, and find out if they contain any grubs. Stumps are fine for holding the same, I understand; at least over where we live; and I guess grubs are grubs the world over.”