ed hand I checked the outburst that was about to follow
this announcement.

"Remember, please, the proprieties!" I said. "Now then, all together,
after me: Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!--Tiger!"

As the echoes died away Master Horrigan spoke:

"How about tents?" he said.

"How about a cook?" This came from Master E. Smith, the stouter of the
two Smiths with an i.

"How about cots?" This last speaker, as I recall, was Master
MacMonnies.

Other questions of a similar tenor volleyed on me from all quarters.

For a space of time measurable by minutes I was quite taken aback. So
engrossed had I been with the costume, with acquiring skill at swimming,
and with ordering from Boston a genuine English yew bow and a sheaf of
arrows, that until this moment these lesser details had entirely escaped
my attention; but at once my mind was at work on the situation.

I recalled that in the work by Mr. Hough, entitled, "The Complete Boy
Camper," of which, as I have remarked before, I already had a copy by
me, there was a chapter describing how a balmy couch, far superior to
any ordinary bed, might be constructed of the boughs of the spruce, the
hemlock, the cedar, or other evergreen growths indigenous to our
latitude; and also a chapter describing methods of cooking without pots
or pans over a wood fire. The author went so far as to say that bacon
was never so delicious as when broiled on a pointed stick above the
glowing coals in the open air, thus preserving the racy tang of the
woods; while it was stated that the ideal manner of preparing any small
game or fish for human consumption was to roll it in a ball of wet clay
and then roast it in the glowing ashes.

It was set forth that the person in charge of the cooking should never
pluck or skin the game, or even open its interior for the purpose for
which I believe such interiors are opened in similar cases; but that
when the fire had died down and the ball had assumed a bricklike
consistency, one had but to rake the latter forth, whereupon it would
split apart; that the skin, feathers or scales, as the case might be,
adhering to the inner surfaces of the dried clay, would be removed, so
to speak, automatically; and that the innermost contents of the animal,
bird or fish--I hesitate to use the word employed in the book--that the
contents, as I shall call them, would then be found drawn up into a
small, hard knot, leaving the meat ready to be eaten.

The author of the book went on to