There happened to be a dead tree near by, and it was soon converted into firewood. The boys built a roaring fire on a large flat rock, and after it had burnt for a little while they pushed it about six feet from the place where they had started it, and, after piling fresh fuel on it, laid down on the hot rock with their feet to the flames. The fire had heated the rock so that they could hardly bear to touch it, but the heat dried their wet clothes rapidly, and kept them from taking severe colds. Meanwhile their blankets had been spread out near the fire, and in half an hour were very nearly dry, and pretty severely scorched. Two large logs were then rolled on the fire, and when they were in a blaze the boys wrapped themselves in their blankets, and, lying as near to the fire as they could without actually burning, resumed their interrupted sleep. They found the rock rather a hard bed, and it offered no temptation to laziness; so it happened that they were all broad awake at half-past four; and though somewhat stiff from lying on a rocky bed, were none the worse for their night’s adventure.
“There’s one thing I’m going to do this very day,” said Harry, as they were dressing themselves after their morning swim. “I’m going to write to the Department to send us a big rubber bag, that we can put our spare clothes in and keep them dry. There’s no fun in being wet and having nothing dry to put on.”
“If we have the bag sent to Albany, it will get there by the time we do,” said Tom. “You write the letter while we are getting breakfast.”
So Harry wrote to the Department as follows:
“Dear Uncle John,—We’ve been wet through with a steamboat once, and the tide wet us the first night, and we got rained on, and I jumped in to get Joe out, and we’ve had a gorgeous time. Please send us a big water-proof bag to put our spare clothes in, so that we can have something dry. Please send it to Albany, and we will stop there at the post-office for it. Please send it right away. You said the Department furnished everything. We’ve been dry twice since we started, but it didn’t last long. There never was such fun. All the boys send their love to you. Please don’t forget the bag. From your affectionate nephew,
“Harry.”
“This was the morning that you were going to sleep till eight o’clock without waking up, Harry,” said Tom, as they were eating their breakfast.
“There’s nothing that will wake a fellow up so quick as the Hudson River rolling in on him. I hadn’t expected to wake up in that way,” answered Harry.
“So far we have done nothing but find out how stupid we are,” said Tom. “Seems to me we must have found it pretty near all out by this time. There can’t be many more stupid things that we haven’t done.”
“There won’t any accident happen to-night,” replied Harry; “for I’ll make sure that the tent is pitched so far from the water that we can’t be wet again. I wonder if every fellow learns to camp out by getting into scrapes as we do. It is very certain that we won’t forget what we learn on this cruise.”