"Aw, Pat, that's no joke. You may think it's funny, but it isn't," he growled, and there was a note of real anger this time.
"What?" demanded Pat with a deep throaty chuckle.
"You know what—waking a feller up when he's just got to sleep and is dead tired and got a hard day coming!" flared Hal.
"Aisy, aisy, son! Do ye think I would be frying bacon in the middle of the night for a joke? 'Tis meself has been up this good hour and 'tis six o'clock this very minute. 'Twill be daylight by the toime we be ready to start," returned Pat good-humoredly.
Hal had it on the tip of his tongue to say that he didn't believe it, but by this time he was sufficiently awake to smell the bacon and hear it sizzle and sputter in the pan. Moreover, his companions were already kicking off their blankets, and he had the good sense to realize that Pat meant just what he said. Still, it was hard to believe, and it was not until he had reached for his watch that he was convinced that it really was time to prepare for another day's tramp. Then he hastily crawled from his blankets, his good humor fully restored, for Hal was a good sport, and there was nothing of the shirk about him.
"I beg pardon, Pat," said he, as he joined the two shivering figures crowding as close to the fire as they could comfortably get while they watched Pat stir up the pancake batter. "I honestly thought you were up to one of your old tricks and putting something across on us. Doesn't seem as if I'd more than closed my eyes. Phew! but it's cold!"
It was. It was the hour just before the break of day when, perhaps because the blood has not yet begun to circulate freely, the cold seems to have reached its maximum of strength. Beyond the narrow radius of the glow from the fire it seemed to fairly bite to the bone.
"Get busy with the axe and you'll forget it," advised Pat, adding, "It is the courtesy of the woods to leave a little wood ready for the next fellow who may hit camp late, as we did yesterday. You'll have just about time enough to get warmed up before these flapjacks are ready."
"Good idea!" cried Walter, seizing an axe. "Come on, you fellows! Sparrer can lug it in as we split it."
At the end of ten minutes Pat called them to eat, and by that time they had forgotten the cold, for they were in a warm glow from exercise.