“You’re an idiot,” laughed Malcolm. “We’ll have to take a coffee-pot along, too. Last year some of us went up there and took a lot of coffee and forgot the pot.”
“And this is the chap to whom we are going to entrust our young and innocent lives!” exclaimed Rob dejectedly. “A chap who has a record like that! I refuse to go along!”
“Oh, you’ll go all right enough when you see the steak and things I’ll get,” scoffed Malcolm.
“Huh! I know all about picnic steak. It’s burned black on the outside and is all red and raw in the middle. And it tastes of smoke.”
“Not the way I cook it,” laughed the other. “You wait.”
“Oh, I suppose you do it in a chafing-dish! The worst of it is, fellows, that after you’ve climbed up there you’re so hungry that you can eat anything. Last time I went up I had to gnaw the bark off the trees for the last half-mile to keep up my strength.”
“I wondered who had been blazing the trees up there,” said Malcolm innocently.
“Somebody’s telling whoppers,” laughed Evan, “for I can see from down here that there aren’t any trees on the top.”
“There were, but Rob ate them all down! Well, nine o’clock sharp, you fellows—don’t forget.”