AT THE FOOT OF BIG BEAR MOUNTAIN
It took them a long time to get settled on that night. Some of the
scouts were about to experience their first camp sleep. They had to be
shown just how to arrange their blankets, and what to do about the
customary pillow upon which they wished to rest their heads.
Tom, Josh and Rob Shaefer, having been through the mill before,
explained these things. They even helped the tenderfeet fill with
hemlock browse the little cotton bag, which had possibly once held
flour, and which each scout had been advised to carry along in his
pack.
"They'll be worth their weight in gold many times on the trip," said
Tom, when even Mr. Witherspoon stood listening with interest, for he
had not as yet learned everything, he was free to confess.
"But do we have to carry them along with us like that?" asked Horace as
he held up the rather bulky object he had made of his cotton slip.
"Certainly not," he was informed; "you empty it before breaking camp,
and in the evening fill it again. Plenty of hemlock or spruce handy,
whenever you choose to stretch out your hand and pluck it."
"You must show me about all these things," Billy Button remarked. "To
tell the truth I don't know the difference between balsam, fir, spruce,
hemlock, larch and some other trees I've heard you talking about."
"I'll begin to-morrow, and you'll find it simple enough," Tom promised
him.
After all the night really passed without any disturbance. Tom and Rob
managed to wake up a number of times, and getting quietly out of their
snug nests, they renewed the fire, thus keeping it going all through
the night.
Had any one been watching closely they probably would have seen a head
bob up occasionally, the owner take a cautious look around, and then
drop back again as though convinced that all was well, with no danger
of ferocious wild beasts raiding the camp.
These were the tenderfeet of the troop. They of course could not sleep
save in snatches, and the strangeness of their surroundings caused them
to feel more or less nervous. All they heard, however, was the barking
of Farmer Brush's watch dogs or some little woods animal complaining
because these two-legged intruders had disturbed the peace of their
homeland.
With the coming of dawn there was a stir in camp. Then one by one the
scouts crawled out from their blankets, all but two greenhorns.
"Let them sleep a while longer," said Mr. Witherspoon. "I fancy neither
of them passed a very comfortable night."
And at this the other boys moderated their voices as they proceeded to
get an early breakfast ready, though in no hurry to leave that pleasant
Camp Content.
Of course both the laggards were up and ready by the time the call to
breakfast was heard in the land. It may be that the smell of the eggs
and bacon frying and the aromatic coffee's bubbling had much to do with
arousing them.
While they were eating who should appear but the hired man of Farmer
Brush. He had a big basket on his arm, also a note for the scout
master.
"I have to go to town early this morning or I'd fetch these few
things myself," the note ran; "I want you to accept them from me
with my compliments, and my hearty thanks for your entertainment
last night. I have hardly slept a wink thinking about what you
told me; and next meeting me and my boys will be on hand.
"EZRA BRUSH.
"P.S. The chickens my wife sends you, and she says they are
tender enough to fry."
Besides the four chickens, all ready for cooking, there was a fine
print of new butter, as well as a carton of several dozen eggs fresh
from the coop.
"Three cheers for Mr. Brush, fellows!" cried Tom, after the scout
master had read the note aloud; and they were given with a will, much
to the entertainment of Bill, who stood there and grinned broadly.
It was about eight o'clock when the column started once more. They
meant to leave the main road they had been following up to this time,
for it did not run in the direction they wanted to go.
There was another smaller one which they expected to follow, for that
day at least, and which skirted the base of the mountain, even
ascending it in several places, as their map showed.
"It will be our last day on any sort of road, if we follow out the
programme as arranged," Tom Chesney explained, as they sat around at
noon munching the "snack" each scout had been commissioned to prepare
at breakfast time against his being hungry in the middle of the day,
when they would not care to start a fire in order to do any cooking.
"You mean we expect to push right up the mountain and begin exploring
the country, don't you, Tom?" asked Josh between bites.
"Yes, and three of the fellows intend to make maps as we go, for
practice," the leader of the Black Bear Patrol explained.
"All I hope is," commented Billy Button, anxiously, "that we don't
manage to get lost. I've got a very important engagement a week from
Friday that I wouldn't want to miss."
"Huh, guess I'm in the same box," chuckled Josh; "anyway I promised to
be sitting in my usual chair with my feet under our dining table on
that same day; and it'd grieve my heart if I missed connections."
The middle of that June day proved to be very warm, and the boys
decided to lie around for several hours. When the sun had got well
started down the western sky perhaps there might be a little more life
in the air. Besides, they were in no hurry; so what was the use of
exerting themselves unduly?
"I hope it isn't going to storm!" suggested Carl, as they sprawled
under the shady tree where they had halted for the noon rest, each
youth in as comfortable an attitude as he could assume.
"Oh, is there any chance of a terrible storm dropping down on us, do
you think?" asked Horace Crapsey, looking troubled; for although none
of the others knew it, the crash of the thunder and the play of
lightning had struck terror to his soul ever since the time he had been
knocked down, when a tree near his house was shattered by a bolt from
the clouds.
"Not that you can see right now," Josh informed him, a little
contemptuously; with a strong boy's feeling toward one who shows signs
of being afraid; "but when it's summer time and when, in the bargain, a
day has been as hot as this one, you never can tell."
"That's so, Josh," George Kingsley remarked, wagging his head as though
for once he actually agreed with something that had been said; "a
simmering day often coaxes a storm along. It may hit us toward
night-time, or even come on any hour afterwards when we're sleeping
like babes in the woods."
"But what can we do for shelter?" asked Billy Button; "we haven't got
even a rag for a tent; and once we get soaked it'll be a hard job to
dry our suits, you know."
"Leave that to us, Billy," Tom told him, confidently. "First of all
every scout has a rubber poncho; two of these fastened together will
make what they call a dog tent, under which a couple of fellows can
tuck themselves, and keep the upper part of their bodies dry. Soldiers
always use them."
"Yes," added Rob Shaefer; "and if it looks like rain to-night we'll
raise several brush shanties. By making use of the rubber blankets they
can be kept as dry as a bone. Scouts must learn how to meet every
possible condition that can rise up. That's a big part of the fun, once
you've begun to play the game."
Billy seemed to be much impressed by this cheering intelligence; and
even Horace smiled again, having recovered from his little panic.
It was almost three o'clock when the signal was given for a start. They
took it slowly, and in the next two hours had probably covered little
more than two miles. They were still loitering along the road that
skirted the foot of the Big Bear Mountain.
"As we have some extra cooking to do to-night, boys," the scout master
told them, "we had better pull up here where we can get fine water.
That's one of the things you must always look for when camping,
remember."
Nothing pleased the scouts better than the prospect of stopping, and
starting supper, for they were tired, and hungry in the bargain.
"If we didn't want to eat these fowls right away," Tom remarked, "I'd
suggest that we bake them in a hot oven made in the ground. That's the
original cooker, you know. But it takes a good many hours to do it."
"Another time, perhaps, when we're stopping several days in one camp
we'll get some more chickens, Tom," said the scout master, "and have
you show us just how it is done. I've heard of the old-time scheme, but
never tasted anything cooked in a mud oven."
Everything looked calm and peaceful just then, but after all that was a
deception and a snare. Even while the cooks were starting in to cut up
the chickens so that the various parts might be placed in the two big
frying-pans, after a certain amount of fat salt pork had been "tried
out," and allowed to get fiercely hot, Josh, who happened to be seen
coming from the spring with a coffee-pot of water called out:
"Well, here comes your storm cloud all right, Horace; only instead of a
ducking we stand a chance of getting a licking from another enraged
tiller of the soil!"