CHAPTER IX
AROUND THE FIRE
After this decisive conflict the period of reconstruction or rather the period of demolition, began auspiciously. It began with a grand feast cooked out-of-doors in the brass kettle which was the pride of Roy’s life. That brass kettle stood upon a scout fireplace of stones, and from its interior a hunter’s stew diffused its luscious fragrance to those who sat about, feeding the companionable fire. The scouts were quite masters of the situation, their coming must have been like a freshening breeze to the lonely visitant at the old deserted camp, and their fun and brisk efficiency and readiness seemed to give him a new life and afford him amusement which was expressed in that silent, likeable, yet haunting smile. It was not often that he laughed aloud and he talked but little, and then with a kind of diffidence that seemed odd in one so much their senior.
“I’m going to leave that kettle to my ancestors when I die,” Roy said. “It’s been all over and I’ve cooked everything in it except Cook’s tours; it’s travelled more than they have, anyway. It’s been to Temple Camp and we fished it up from the bottom of the lake once and I guess as many as ten thousand wheat cakes have come out of that kettle. Hey, Pee-wee?”
“Nine thousand eight hundred is all Pee-wee can say for sure about,” Westy said.
“Are you used to camping?” Doc Carson asked Blythe. “I thought maybe you liked this kind of thing because you came here.”
“It was just that I was out of a job,” Blythe said frankly. “Anything’s better than nothing. I happened to wander in here and met a man with an auto. He works for the concern that’s going to tear the camp down; a salvage concern. He got me this job. I don’t suppose you’d call it a job, it’s an assignment. I picked out the three buildings and they sent me a paper with the numbers on. I’ve only been here a couple of days. Yesterday was the only time I was in Bridgeboro. I was going to give it up. I didn’t have any supplies and I didn’t know who to get to help me–I was mighty glad that friend of yours came up yesterday and said he’d tell you fellows it was all right.”
“He’s our scoutmaster,” said Pee-wee. “He’s all right, only you’ve got to know how to manage him. We’ll start in to-morrow morning and we’ll show that savage concern all right. We’ll show them what we can do.”
“Maybe they won’t be so savage,” Roy said.
“Pee-wee can manage them,” Westy observed.
“Oh sure, all you have to do is to know how to manage them,” commented Connie. “They can’t come too savage for our young hero.”