“Can we make the pond, Jim?” asked Thad. “Not the big pond,”
Jim called back; “but there’s a little one about half way.”
The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods Page 241
The Boy Scouts
In the Maine Woods
OR
The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol
By HERBERT CARTER
Author of “The Boy Scouts First Camp Fire,”“The Boy Scouts
in the Blue Ridge,” “The Boy Scouts on the Trail,”
“The Boy Scouts Through the Big Timber,”
“The Boy Scouts In the Rockies”
A. L. BURT COMPANY
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1913
By A. L. Burt Company
THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE MAINE WOODS.
THE BOY SCOUTS IN THE MAINE WOODS
3CHAPTER I.
AFLOAT ON THE WINDING AROOSTOOK.
“I tell you, Bumpus Hawtree, I can do it as easy as turn my hand over,once I get the hang of the thing!”
“Oh! you don’t say so, Giraffe? Here you’ve been trying forthese three days past, with your silly old bow and stick, twirling away like anorgan grinder; and never so much as struck a single spark of fireyet.”
“Well, you see, there are a whole lot of things about the thing Idon’t know.”
“Sure there are. You can do everything but the right thing. You spinthat stick with the point that fits in the hole you made in that block of wood,like fun; but your fine tinder don’t even smoke, as far as I cansee.”
“Huh! you’ll see it do more than that, and before 4 the end of this Maine trip,I’ll give you to understand, Bumpus.”
“Oh! will I? How kind of you, Giraffe.”
“You needn’t say that like you didn’t believe I’dever beat it out. I’ve made fires ten different ways, and you know that.And listen to me–I’m just bound to get one going in that South SeaIsland method we’ve read about, ‘or give up trying!’ You hear me,Bumpus?”
“No trouble about that, Giraffe. Tell you what I’ll do, though,in the generosity of my heart–make a wager with you about that firebusiness; and it’s a treat of ice-cream for the crowd, for theloser.”
“I take you on that,” quickly snapped back the long-legged BoyScout who was curled up in the stern of the canvas canoe that was being pushedalong by the energetic arms of a sturdy guide, as straight as his name was theopposite, it being Eli Crooks.
“Then let’s have a clear understanding,” observed the fatlad, squatting rather awkwardly in the bow of the same craft; “say, youother fellows, d’ye hear what we’re talking about?” and heraised his voice a trifle, so that the occupants of the two other boats thatwere close by, might listen; just as if they had not been keeping their earswide open; for when Bumpus and Giraffe got into a hot argument, there wasgenerally plenty of fun in the air.
5One of the othercanoes contained three scouts, as could be told from various parts of theirkhaki uniforms that they wore, even when off on a hunting trip. The clear-eyedfellow who seemed to be in charge of the party was Thad Brewster; one of hiscompanions was known as Step Hen Bingham, because, as a little chap he hadinsisted at school that was the way his name should be spelled, while the thirdwas an exceedingly wiry boy, Davy Jones by name, an