“Here’s a fine piece of soft pine,” he whispered. Alf accepted it silently without taking his watchful gaze from the fire and gingerly added it to the pile. Another piece followed, and another. And then, very cautiously, Alf arose, waved aside the rug and smiled beatifically upon his work.
“There!” he said.
Tom and Dan shook hands in much the manner in which two Arctic explorers might congratulate each other at the North Pole. Alf viewed them disgustedly.
“I’d like to know what you chaps are grinning about. Who made this fire?”
“You applied the match,” replied Tom kindly, “but without our skillful and well-performed labor there’d have been no fire. We are the real heroes of the—the conflagration.”
As the flames leaped up, crackling merrily, life looked a good deal more cheerful. They piled on dead branches and driftwood until they were forced to move away to a respectful distance. Then they stood and warmed themselves in the grateful heat. Afterwards they spread the rugs on the ground and Alf opened the luncheon box. It was only half past twelve, but their labors and the keen wind had made them hungry. Gerald filled the two tumblers with water from the river and Alf spread out the repast. There was cold roast beef, crackers, plenty of bread ready sliced, butter, salt, currant jelly, cake, some chow-chow pickles which had leaked out of a jelly glass and got into everything, including the salt and cake, and four large rosy apples.
“Gee!” said Tom, “you must have made love to the cook, Alf.”
“No,” replied his roommate, who had recovered his spirits, “no, it was just my manly beauty and irresistible attraction. Let’s toast some of the bread, fellows.”
So Alf cut a long branch and sharpened one end and then sat crosslegged as near the flames as he could get with a slice of bread impaled on the end of the improvised toasting fork. It was warm work, but the others encouraged him from time to time, and he stuck it out until he had three slices toasted.
“That first piece is mine,” he finally announced. “And if anyone wants any more he’ll have to toast it himself.”