"You did!" exclaimed Tom Burgess, in open-eyed amazement. "How did it happen? Tell us about it."
So the story of the cruise and its double mutiny had to be told then and there to Tom and the other canoe-boys, who listened with envious interest.
"Well!" declared Tom, when from the confused recital of half a dozen Rangers at once he had gleaned the main points of the story. "It beats anything I ever heard of outside of a book, and I only wish I'd waited in Berks so as to come with you. But look here! You fellows haven't been over to our camp yet. So come on, and see what you think of the New York style of doing things."
The Rangers, only too ready to see or do anything new, sprang up, and would have followed him in a body, had they not been restrained by practical Will Rogers, who called out:
"Hold on, fellows! We've got our own camp to fix first. It's most sundown now, and it wouldn't be much fun working in the dark. Besides, we've got supper to think of."
"I'm thinking of it now," laughed Mif Bowers, "and wondering what we are going to do about it."
"Oh, that'll be all right," said Tom Burgess, hospitably. "You'll all come over and eat supper with us to-night, and we'll help you rig up your tent. Just wait till I run over and tell the cook."
The canoe-boys, who knew nothing of the Rangers' previous training as firemen and other things, under Will Rogers's leadership, were surprised to see the businesslike manner with which these country lads set to work to make themselves comfortable. While some cut tent-poles or gathered firewood, others overhauled the big tarpaulin that was to form their tent, and provided it with stout cords at corners and sides. When it was finally raised and stretched into position, it formed a serviceable and roomy shelter, which, though lacking the whiteness of the New York tents, was decidedly more picturesque and in keeping with the Rangers' present character of shipwrecked mariners. Beneath its dingy spread all the provisions and camp equipments were neatly piled on one side, while the blankets, spread on the ground above some bits of old canvas, were so arranged on the other as to make one long bed.
All this was hardly completed when the loud banging of an iron spoon against a tin pan sounded a welcome supper call from the other camp, while at the same moment Tom Burgess appeared to act as host and escort.
The canoe-boys had brought along a regular cook, and their camp consisted of a kitchen tent, a mess tent, and a big living or sleeping tent, in which, however, very few of them ever slept. It was lots more fun to lie in their canoes under the little striped canoe tents hung from the masts, and making enclosures so charmingly snug, that the Berks boys declared them even superior to the bicycle shelter tents that had so excited their admiration when they were Road Rangers.