rd as you can, and jump up and down as if you were
crazy. Never mind how it looks, if only you get the blood to circulating
good. Bristles, it's up to you and me to start a fire booming in a
hurry."

"Here's as good a place as any, Fred, for there's plenty of loose wood
around."

Fred was already busily engaged in hunting all manner of small bits of
dry fuel under the sheltered sides of the logs, and in hollow stumps. As
soon as he had gathered a few handfuls of this tinder, he drew out a
match, and started it burning.

Fred was a clever hand at making a fire, and this one did not fail him.
Bristles had in the meantime brought an armful of wood, and, selecting
the smaller pieces, the two soon had a fine, large blaze going, that
began to send out a considerable amount of welcome heat.

"Back up here, and see how this feels, Sammy," Fred told the shivering
lad. When the other had done so, he added, "Now, just as soon as you
feel warm on one side, change to the other. You know what they say, 'one
good turn deserves another,' and here's where it applies. Keep up your
exercising, because all that is going to help prevent you from taking
cold. If I only had some hot tea or coffee, I'd give you some, but we'll
have to do without it, I'm afraid."

He kept talking to the boy and girl as he worked at the fire, and
Bristles continued to carry fresh supplies of wood, laboring like a good
fellow. In this way Fred managed to learn that the name of the boy they
had rescued was Sam Ludson and that he lived with Corny Ludson; though
when he asked how far away it was they lived the answer was an evasive
one.

"A good distance away," was about all the boy would say, and Fred could
not help noticing that he again exchanged uneasy looks with his sister.

There was certainly something very queer about these two, though Fred
could not understand why they should feel backward about telling where
they lived, and especially to a couple of boys who had just done them a
great favor.

Still, Fred was not unduly curious about it. If the brother and sister
did not want to take him into their confidence, he was not the one to
persist. So far as he could remember, Ludson was a name he had never
heard before, so it did not seem as though they could ever have lived
around Riverport. Bristles later on also declared that it was strange to
him, and he had been born there, while Fred was comparatively a newcomer,
having arrived only a c