w many meals a day we try to make way
with," the other solemnly announced. "I've been calculating, and
there's enough stuff there to feed us a month. Then, besides, think of
what we toted along. Shucks! why didn't Nature make boys with India
rubber stomachs."

"Some fellows I happen to know have already been favored in that
line," hinted Tom Betts, maliciously; "but as for the rest of us, we
have to get along with just the old-fashioned kind."

"Cheer up, Bobolink," laughed Paul; "what we can't devour we'll be
only too glad to leave to our good friend Tolly Tip here. The chances
are he'll know what to do with everything so none of it will be
wasted."

"When a man who all his life has been as tightfisted as Mr. Garrity
does wake up," said Phil Towns, "he goes to the other extreme, and
shames a lot of people who've been calling themselves charitable."

"Oh! that's because he has so much to make up, I guess," explained
Jud.

While some of the boys started in to get a good supper ready the
others went around taking a look at the cabin in the snowy woods that
was to be their home for the next twelve days.

It had been strongly built to resist the cold, though as a rule the
owner did not come up here after the leaves were off the forest trees.
A stove in one room could be used to keep it as warm as toast when
foot-long lengths of wood were fed to its capacious maw. The fire in
the big open hearth served to heat the other room, and over this the
cooking was also done.

Several bunks gave promise of snug sleeping quarters. As these would
accommodate only four it was evident that lots must be cast to see
who the lucky quartette would prove to be.

"To-morrow," said Paul, when speaking of this lack of accommodations,
"one of the very first things we do will be to fix other bunks,
because every scout should have a decent place for his bed. There's
plenty of room in here to make a regular scout dormitory of it."

"Fine!" commented Tom Betts; "and those of us who draw the short
straws can manage somehow with our blankets on the floor for one
night, I guess."

"We've all slept soundly on harder beds than that, let me tell you,"
asserted Bobolink, "and for one I decline to draw a straw. Me for the
soft side of a plank to-night, you hear."

The other boys knew that Bobolink, in his generosity, really had in
mind Phil and one or two more of the boys, not quite so accustomed to
roughing it as others of the campers.

That