Evening mess was a hurried affair. There was too much excitement for eating. Promptly at eight o’clock Dr. Merriam appeared with the other members of the camp force and a few guests who had remained, and the tribes gathered in a circle around the huge pile of fire-wood in front of headquarters. Each chief selected five of his followers to represent his tribe. These squatted in four groups with their fire sticks before them on the ground. Behind each group stood an umpire to announce the first bona fide flame.
The silence was almost painful as Dr. Merriam raised his arm for the starting shot. There was a momentary stir as the boys hastily reached for their sticks, and then no sound save an occasional long breath and the whirr of the fire drills. Twenty seconds, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three—“Buxby’s fire!” cried a voice sharply, and then a mighty yell arose from the Delawares and Algonquins as Billy leaped forward and thrust his tiny blaze into the tinder of the dark pile before him. Wigwam No. 1 had won!
CHAPTER XX
THE HOME TRAIL
Walter stood on the pier at Upper Lake looking down the long stretch of water. A mist gathered before his eyes and blurred his vision. For the moment he was alone. His father and Mr. Harrison were over by “Woodcraft Girl,” which was made fast farther down the pier, and were talking earnestly with Louis Woodhull. How beautiful it was, and how hard to leave. What a glorious summer it had been!
His thoughts ran back to the morning when he had stood in this same place with Big Jim and felt for the first time the mystery of the great wilderness. Was it possible that that was only eight weeks before? What a lot had happened in that short time! What a tenderfoot he had been! How much he had thought he knew of woodcraft, and how little it had been compared with what he knew now.
And yet even now he had learned little more than the elementary lessons. Big Jim had been right; “Woodcraft never yet was larned out o’ books.” And still how much he owed to those same books. In the light of the knowledge obtained from them how much better he had been able to apply the lessons learned from his practical experiences. Even the big guide had come to see this, and had grudgingly admitted that there might be some good in the despised books, after all.
Walter stretched his arms out toward the lake and the mountains. “How I hate to leave it all,” he said, unconsciously speaking aloud.
“Same here,” said Hal Harrison, who had come up behind him unobserved. “And a few weeks ago I would have given anything I possessed to get away. Now I can’t wait for next summer to come, so that I can get back here. You’ll be back, of course?”
“I don’t know. I want to. Seems as if I’d simply got to. It’s all a matter of whether Dad can afford to let me,” replied Walter frankly.