cheering intelligence; and
even Horace smiled again, having recovered from his little panic.

It was almost three o'clock when the signal was given for a start. They
took it slowly, and in the next two hours had probably covered little
more than two miles. They were still loitering along the road that
skirted the foot of the Big Bear Mountain.

"As we have some extra cooking to do to-night, boys," the scout master
told them, "we had better pull up here where we can get fine water.
That's one of the things you must always look for when camping,
remember."

Nothing pleased the scouts better than the prospect of stopping, and
starting supper, for they were tired, and hungry in the bargain.

"If we didn't want to eat these fowls right away," Tom remarked, "I'd
suggest that we bake them in a hot oven made in the ground. That's the
original cooker, you know. But it takes a good many hours to do it."

"Another time, perhaps, when we're stopping several days in one camp
we'll get some more chickens, Tom," said the scout master, "and have
you show us just how it is done. I've heard of the old-time scheme, but
never tasted anything cooked in a mud oven."

Everything looked calm and peaceful just then, but after all that was a
deception and a snare. Even while the cooks were starting in to cut up
the chickens so that the various parts might be placed in the two big
frying-pans, after a certain amount of fat salt pork had been "tried
out," and allowed to get fiercely hot, Josh, who happened to be seen
coming from the spring with a coffee-pot of water called out:

"Well, here comes your storm cloud all right, Horace; only instead of a
ducking we stand a chance of getting a licking from another enraged
tiller of the soil!"

CHAPTER XV

NOT GUILTY

"Whew! but he looks even madder than Mr. Brush did!" exclaimed Billy
Button, when he saw the advancing man snap his whip furiously, as
though to warn them what to expect on his arrival.

Every scout was now on his feet and watching.

"There's his wagon over on the road," said Carl; "he must have been
passing and have seen us here. I wonder if we've trespassed on _his_
private property now. Mr. Witherspoon, you'd better get ready to
hypnotize another mad farmer."

"He's got his eye on our chickens, let me tell you!" urged Josh, as he
moved over a few paces, as though meaning to defend the anticipated
treat desperately if need be.

The man was a big brawny fellow, an