“You’re too hot to go in that ice water,” the doctor said, grabbing Bennie. “Wash your feet all you want to, and splash yourselves.”
After the wash, they put on their dry underclothes, and spread the other set in the sun (which was fast dropping down the west), and then set about making camp.
“I say we find a straight-faced rock to build the fire against,” Bennie suggested, “so it will throw the heat all one way, and we can sleep around it in a half circle, out of the wind.”
“I move we find a place where the ground is dry and a snow-drift hasn’t just melted off it,” added Spider.
“And where it’s nice and soft,” added Dumplin’.
“And where it’s near wood,” added Mr. Stone.
“Maybe you’d like a room with a bath, and have your breakfast brought up to you,” Uncle Billy laughed. “Well, go to it. Find your rock, Bennie. Whoever’s got the axes, cut wood, and lots of it.”
A smooth place was finally found in the lee of a block of lava, some little way from the stream, but near a patch of firs and hemlocks, where there was plenty of dead wood. Dumplin’ started stoning up a big fireplace, while the two scouts chopped wood and Mr. Stone brought water in the big kettle and two little kettles of the camp kits and in the canteens, and the doctor mixed a pancake batter, and made the bacon and egg powder ready to cook, and peeled one of the two potatoes in each pack.
As the sun dropped down behind the high ridge to the west, a chill almost immediately came into the air. In less than an hour everybody, who had been so hot all day, was thinking about putting on his sweater. But the fire burned brightly, the potatoes smelled delicious in the frying-pan, and as soon as they were done, the smell of bacon and eggs rose from the same pan. Water for bouillon tablets and tea boiled in the kettles. The food disappeared down hungry mouths, and every plate was scraped clean, ready for the pancakes to follow. They had no syrup to eat on the cakes, but nobody seemed to mind that. After the cakes, they drew lots to see whose can of fruit should be opened, because the lucky one would have so much less to carry in his pack. Dumplin’ won, to his delight. His can was peaches, and how good they tasted—after the can was finally pried open, with the aid of a scout ax, a stone and a broken jack-knife blade!
Then the dishes were washed, more wood heaped on the fire, sweaters donned, and in the gathering darkness, and the utter silence of the wilderness, the five hikers sat in a close ring before the fire, and relaxed their weary muscles.