the top to let the smoke
out; but they would have to go a good way off so that the other fellows
could not see them, and they could not wait for that. They divided the
herrings between them, and they each had two crackers and three apples,
and they made a good meal.

Then they went to a pump at the nearest house, where the woman said they
might have a drink, and drank themselves full. They wanted awfully to ask
her for some salt, but they did not dare to do it for fear she would make
them tell what they wanted it for. So they came away without, and Jim said
they could put ashes on their potatoes the way the Indians did, and it
would be just as good as salt.

They ran back to the river bank, and ran along up it till they were out of
sight of the boys on the shore below, and then they made their oven in it,
and started their fire with some matches that Jim Leonard had in his
pocket, so that if he ever got lost in the woods at night he could make
a fire and keep from freezing. His tooth had stopped aching now, and he
kept telling such exciting stories about Indians that Pony could not seem
to get the chance to ask why Bunty Williams should take after the boys
with his shotgun and bulldog if he had given up the watermelon patch and
only wanted it for seed.

The question lurked in Pony's mind all the time that they were waiting for
the potatoes to bake, but somehow he could not get it out. He did not feel
very well, and he tried to forget his bad feelings by listening as hard as
he could to Jim Leonard's stories. Jim kept taking the potatoes out to see
if they were done enough, and he began to eat them while they were still
very hard and greenish under the skin. Pony ate them, too, although he was
not hungry now, and he did not think the ashes were as good as salt on
them, as Jim pretended. The potato he ate seemed to make him feel no
better, and at last he had to tell Jim that he was afraid he was going to
be sick.

Jim said that if they could heat some stones, and get a blanket anywhere,
and put it over Pony and the stones, and then pour water on the hot
stones, they could give him a steam bath the way the Indians did, and it
would cure him in a minute; they could get the stones easy enough, and he
could bring water from the river in his straw hat, but the thing of it was
to get the blanket.

He stood looking thoughtfully down at Pony, who was crying now, and
begging Jim Leonard to go home with him, for he did not be