o keep them from the
night air. Should it storm possibly all of them could crawl under,
though the boys declared they meant to keep the camp-fire burning
throughout the night, and would not need anything over them.

"Things are looking some different from what they did while we were
drifting along on that wobbly old piece of the broken bridge, eh,
fellows?" Steve wanted to know, as later on, when it began to grow dim
with the approach of night, the boys sat down to rest, and watch their
force of cooks getting supper ready.

"Couldn't be a bigger change anyway you fix it," assented Bandy-legs;
"and let me tell you these girls certainly know how to go at things the
right way. Now, as I've been taking lessons from our cook, Nora, I
ought to be considered something of a judge, and I want to say right
here that I never whiffed more appetizing smells around a camp-fire in
all my born days than are filling the air this very minute. I don't
see how I can stand it much longer; seems that I'm possessed with a
wild desire to jump up and begin eating like a cannibal."

"Well, don't you pick out Bessie when you do," Steve warned him
solemnly; "she may be sweet enough to eat, but not for you, Bandy-legs.
But just think how the girls must suffer getting all these rations
ready, and not having had a mouthful of food since breakfast-time while
all the rest of us had lunch at noon."

"Max, you said you had a bell somewhere, so please ring it, because
everything's ready," Mazie called out just at that minute.

Whereupon Max picked up an extra skillet that had come with the other
kitchen stuff, and pounded on it loud and long with a great big stick;
while the rest of the party hastened to find places around the
makeshift camp table, formed out of some of the best boards, laid on
the ground, because they had neither hammer nor nails with which to
construct a real table.

It was a merry sight to see them all, and much laughing was indulged
in. Young hearts may not long stay depressed; and the loss of Mr.
French's home, while it may have seemed too bad in the eyes of all of
them, was not irreparable, since he was considered well-to-do, and
later on could build a newer and better house in place of the one swept
away.

No lives had been lost, and hence there was really no occasion for them
to pull long faces and make themselves miserable.

Mrs. Jacobus was smiling all the while. This was evidently a new as
well as novel experienc