“Matty,” said Tom, “if you don’t stop making these jokes—”
“I can’t seem to satisfy you fellows,” said Matthew. “That wasn’t such a bad one—”
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea,” asked Howard, innocently, “to put the covering on before we try her out?”
“Mightn’t be a bad scheme,” said Harry.
“You know most of them are covered,” Howard said; “they say it helps them to rise.”
Two sonorous blasts of Charlie Greer’s tin horn put an end to the conversation. Near the lean-to the trunk of a young tree had been felled and rested horizontally in the forks of two others. From this hung a line of seventeen towels, rough dry, but spotless, each one bearing a scout’s initials. The cookee laundered these every sunny day, by Red Deer’s orders. In process of preparation for supper, Harry reached the rack before the others, and came upon Gordon giving his round face a few final rubs.
“Hello, Kid,” he said cheerily.
“Hello,” Gordon answered.
“Thought we’d see you over yonder to-day. She’s beginning to look quite shipshape, Kid. Come on over in the morning and take a look. Guess we’ll get her finished to-morrow, if Mat doesn’t stop to chin too much. Been stalking to-day?” But there was no answer; and when Harry’s face emerged from its towel, Gordon had disappeared.
It developed from camp-fire talk that night that Gordon had been stalking with that indefatigable stalker, Brick Parks. Parks, after long and patient effort, had managed to get a first-class snapshot of a hawk, for it was his public-spirited wish that the Hawk Patrol, of which he was a member, should have some sort of representation of their patron bird, produced by his own hand. And the idea had fired Gordon with enthusiasm, so that for the last two days he had been haunting the stream, armed with his trusty little “Brownie,” in the hope of bringing its deadly focus on a real live beaver.