ALL BUSY AS BEAVERS
It was some time before the boys could settle down again to sleep.
Perk often believed he could catch a distant yap from the ranging
hound, and it never failed to give him a thrill. The beast had
seemed both big, and inclined to be savage; and Perk could not help
shuddering to think of his getting loose from his leash and coming
on the cringing lunatic somewhere in the lonely timber.
But finally even the anxious Perk succumbed, and when he again
opened his eyes it was to find that daylight had come, with Elmer
outside starting up the fire, and some one else rattling the tin
pans, as if getting ready for a jolly breakfast.
As that was encroaching on his private preserves, Perk hastened to
bob up and assure the others he would soon be on deck, prepared to
make a mess of his savory “flapjacks,” as he had solemnly promised
to do the very first morning in camp.
Soon every one was busily engaged, for there was bound to be “heaps”
of work laid out for that wonderful day. Amos was examining the
dilapidated roof of the cabin and settling just how they should go
about rendering it waterproof; Wee Willie beat some batter in a tin
vessel, under the eye of the self-constituted master of ceremonies
(for Perk had actually donned a snow-white peakless cap, fashioned
after a regular _chef’s_ headgear, doubtless meaning to have no
dispute regarding his recognized rights to the exalted title); while
Elmer had taken to looking around outside, especially over in the
quarter of the leaning birch tree.
He came over to the fire a little later, and Wee Willie at once
detected indications in his face that made him suspicious.
“You’ve discovered something new, Elmer, now don’t deny it!” he
immediately asserted.
“What is it?” hastily demanded Perk.
“Well,” said Elmer, quietly, “it’s just this; whoever that man may
be, he came back again during the night!”
This information caused all of the others to show fresh interest.
Perk was just in the act of tossing aloft his first flapjack, and in
his nervousness he actually missed connections, so that the
delectable morsel ignominiously fell into the ashes, and was thus
lost.
“It wasn’t up to the mark, anyhow,” the nervous cook hastened to say
in apology; “first off the pan shouldn’t be eaten, I always claim.
But you _did_ give me a jolt, Elmer, when you said that.”
“How do you know?” questioned Wee Willie; “run across the sign, did
you?”
“He walked completely around the cabin twice,” stated the other.
“From the indications I’d say he must have been a heap surprised to
discover that it had occupants; for I take it, he could hear some of
us breathing pretty hard.”
“Huh! needn’t all look right at _me_,” Wee Willie hastened to snap,
as he colored up amidst his freckles. “I made out to lie on my side
the whole live-long night, I’d take my affidavy on that. I admit
that once in a while I do snore; but that’s when I roll over on my
back, and have been gorging at supper on such things as mince pie
and other heavy stuff. Go on, Elmer!”
“I know what you are thinking,” Elmer continued; “how could I decide
that the man didn’t make those marks before we came? I’ll tell you
what proof I have right now. In the first place there isn’t much dew
in the tracks, which I reckon would indicate that the footprints
were made shortly before dawn. Am I right there, Wee Willie? You’re
well up in woodcraft, and ought to be able to say.”
“Sounds good to me,” grunted the other, wagging his head violently
in the affirmative, while a pleased expression on his thin face told
how much he felt complimented by having Elmer defer in this fashion
to his judgment.
“Well, I had another good proof,” Elmer went on to say, with one of
his reassuring smiles. “Where the tracks crossed the marks left by
Collins and his pal they overlapped; that is, this footprint broke
into the ones made by the two guards from the asylum!”
“Splendid work, Elmer!” cried Perk, this time succeeding brilliantly
in tossing up his second flapjack, which alighted successfully in
the pan, with the browned side up. “Guess he did come prowling
around then, and like as not tried the door more’n once. Say, I’m
real glad I fastened it as well as I did.”
“What do you suppose he wanted?” queried Amos, looking even more
serious than was his habit.
“Not being a mind reader,” Elmer told him, “I couldn’t say; but to
make a stab at it I’d guess he hoped we’d gone along, and he could
have his old cabin to himself again.”
“Well, it’ll always be a big mystery who and what this chap can be,”
Wee Willie concluded. “I only hope now he knows we’re stopping here
he’ll take the hint, and keep off the grass. It’ll go rough with any
hobo _we_ catch bothering our traps, let me tell you. Here, put that
one on this warm plate I’ve got on this flat stone alongside the
fire, Perk. It makes a beginning, and we can soon be starting in to
feed.”
“Somebody open that bottle of maple syrup,” observed the bustling
cook a little later on, as another “cart-wheel” cake went turning
over in the air, to be caught dexterously again in the pan. “And
when I get a third one ready you’d better start in eating while
they’re fresh and hot. The coffee’s done; and of course I don’t mean
to commence until somebody can spell me here.”
In good time they were doing full justice to Perk’s famous
flapjacks; which each and every camper solemnly declared when
passing up his pie-tin for more were really unequaled by anything
served at the breakfast table at home.
Of course Wee Willie presently insisted on taking Perk’s place, so
that the _chef_ might take the edge off his own appetite; until
finally all of them declared they could not swallow another bite,
and with three cakes left over.
“For munching on between meals, if any one wants a snack,” Perk
explained, as he put them aside. “Nothing to be wasted in this
camp—that is, except perhaps the first tryout in a batch.”
Then they commenced to do things, each one having jotted down
certain tasks that should be attended to without delay.
Elmer and Wee Willie took upon their shoulders the mending of the
cabin roof; patching up sundry apertures between the logs of the
walls, where the dried mud had long since fallen away through the
action of time and weather combined; and also renewing the broken
hinge on the cumbersome door.
Perk insisted on cleaning up the breakfast things; somehow he loved
to serve in the capacity of cook, and his mates seemed perfectly
willing to have it so, strange to say.
As for Amos, already he had his precious camera out, and announced
his intention of searching the immediate neighborhood, in hopes of
securing some unusual picture.
“I’d like above all things to find a late partridge on her nest,” he
was explaining ere he sauntered forth. “I’ve always wanted to get a
picture of the bird on her eggs, or strutting around with her
chicks; but I’m afraid it’s a heap too late in the season for such a
thing to happen.”
“As a rule the early brood is pretty well grown by now,” commented
Elmer; “still, I remember finding a nest with eggs in it as late as
this, and you might be just lucky enough. Wish you success, Amos;
and if I can help you in any way let me know.”
“Perhaps you may when I get a chance to set a camera trap at night,
so some cunning ’coon, or frisky mink, will take his own picture.
That’s my ambition, you know, Elmer, though I’m not building my
hopes too high, not wanting to be disappointed.”
“I wouldn’t stray too far away, if I were you, Amos,” hinted Wee
Willie.
“Oh! I’m a pretty fair woodsman,” insisted the other, “and I reckon
now the chances of my getting lost are small. But I’ll just wander
around the Bend here, and sort of get my bearings, as well as keep
one eye out for anything that appeals to me.”
“And keep the other on the watch for signs of that tramp, or
lunatic, Amos,” Perk insisted on warning him solicitously.
So Amos walked away, carrying his camera along with him. Elmer
looked after him with an expression akin to concern on his young
face, which shrewd Wee Willie was quick to notice.
“Something seems to be bothering him, don’t you think, Elmer?” the
latter asked in a low tone so that Perk might not hear what he said.
“Y-es, I’ve thought so myself lately,” admitted Elmer, slowly;
“though you remember, Amos has always been a sobersides of a chap
ever since we came to know him. There’s a sort of family trouble
weighing down on him, I reckon; something that is no one else’s
business. I’d like to comfort him if only I knew how to go about it;
but I don’t want to kick in where outsiders have no right. But let’s
change the subject, Wee Willie; I dislike talking about any of my
chums.”
They worked industriously for an hour and more, and under their
clever tactics the roof began to show decided signs of improvement.
Indeed, already one-half of its surface had been rendered impervious
to water, after the boys had succeeded in thatching it with bark
stripped from certain trees, and overlapping like the shingles on an
ordinary house.
“By the time we get through we needn’t be afraid of the heaviest
kind of a rainfall,” said Elmer, confidently; “unless it’s
accompanied by a fierce wind, such as might strip all this off in a
jiffy.”
“Where’s Perk gone?” asked Wee Willie; “I thought I heard him saying
something just then, but it sounded as if he was off somewhere.”
“I saw him prowling around in the brush yonder ten minutes ago,”
Elmer informed him. “Like as not he’s just bent on seeing if there’s
a good spot for fishing at the Bend here; because, you know Perk
dearly loves to pull in the frisky black bass, or the striped perch,
as well as eat the same.”
“Listen! wasn’t that him speaking again?” hissed Wee Willie,
stopping his task of fastening a strip of pliable bark with small
round tins, through each of which a nail could be driven, such as
are used to secure tarred paper to the roofs of chicken coops and
other small outbuildings.
“No, you don’t, not this time, you nasty thing!” Perk was heard
saying half in disgust, and with a tinge of consternation in his
tones. “Curl up again, and shake your old locust rattle as much as
you please, who cares?”
“Perk!” shouted Elmer excitedly, recognizing a certain dreadful
sound that now floated to his ears, “back away! Don’t fool with a
rattlesnake, you silly! Back water, and in a hurry!”