“Golly, that’s so,” Joe answered. “I don’t believe I have. It’s going to be hard cooking with nothing but pine. How’s a feller going to get a bed of coals?”
“I guess he isn’t. But I’ll see what can be done.”
Tom went into the woods with one of the axes, while Joe busied himself about camp, making a shelf on a tree for the provisions, getting the trunks stowed away under the cots, rigging up a rough table out of two pieces of board he went back to the tepee camp and hunted up, and planning for a lean-to to be built later as a shelter while cooking.
Tom came back presently, his arms loaded with dry wood.
“All soft,” he said, stacking it near the fire-pot. “There’s not a hardwood in the forest anywhere. Come on, now, we’ve got to get a supply cut for the camp, in case anybody comes. If they don’t come, we can cook on the stove there, I guess. It’ll be easier than here.”
“And not so much fun,” said Joe.
The two boys worked industriously for the next hour, Tom doing the heavy chopping, and got a good pile of wood stacked up beside the stove in the camp. It was nearly five o’clock now, and still no one had appeared, so they went back to their tent, being hot and tired, put on a set of summer underclothes for bathing suits, and ran down to the lake. The bottom dropped away rather gradually, over rough stones, so they could not dive. Tom was the first in. He went in up to his knees, and emitted a yell that echoed from the wall of pines across the water.
“Wow!” he cried, “sufferin’ snakes!”
“Is it cold?” said Joe, still standing on the shore.
“Oh, no, it ain’t cold! Oh, no, it’s warm as a hot potato!”