“Harry, you would not deceive me?”
“I’ll gag you in a minute.”
“And this mountain is a kind of knot in the wood, Harry? Do all the splitting you like, but for goodness sake, be careful—”
Harry placed his hand over Gordon’s mouth, and by a dexterous movement tumbled him on to the ground. “Get up now, and help pitch camp, and I’ll make you a rice pudding with figs in it. How does that strike you?”
“I can stand it if you can.”
“No sooner said than stung,” observed Harry.
Their first business was to find water, and this they soon discovered—a crystal spring, ice cold, that bubbled temptingly up between the rocks. While Gordon kindled a fire, Henry felled a small sapling and binding it horizontally between two other saplings, in a sheltered spot, threw his balloon silk shelter over it, drawing it diagonally toward the earth on either side. Gordon kept up a running accompaniment as he busied himself with the fireplace.
“‘Oh, we are merry mountaineers,
And have no carking cares or fears.’
“What kind of a care is a carking care, Harry?”