being handy with an ax, as his muscular condition gave him an advantage
over both the others. "The only trouble is I'm as hungry as a wolf right
now, and so much extra exercise will make me wild for my supper."

The sound of the ax soon announced that Steve was doing his duty, and
that a supply of wood for the cooking fire was certain to be
forthcoming.

Meanwhile, Jack had started to build a fireplace with a number of stones
which lay conveniently near by. From the blackened state of some of
these the boy suspected they had served for just such a purpose on some
former occasion.

When he had fixed this to suit his ideas of the proper thing he had
arranged the stones so that one end of the fireplace was a little
broader than the other.

Across this space he now laid a metal framework that looked like a
grill, and which was two feet square. This was bound to prove a most
valuable camping asset, since coffee pot and frying pan could be placed
on it without much danger of those accidents that occur so often when
they are balanced upon the rough edges of the stones themselves.

All was now ready for the fire itself, which Jack quickly started. Toby
gave an exclamation of satisfaction the instant he saw the flames leap
up.

"Too bad we were in such a hurry," he went on to say, regretfully. "Some
sort of ceremony ought to attend the starting of the first fire in camp.
It's going to be our best friend you know, when even we get ravenously
hungry; and seems to me we might at least have joined hands, and danced
around the blaze while we crooned some sort of song dedicated to the god
of fire."

"None of those silly frills go in this camp, Toby, you want to know,"
said Steve, sternly, coming in just then with an armful of firewood.
"This is a business camp, and not a make-believe one. We're up here to
enjoy ourselves, and take pictures, but no barbaric rites can be
allowed. Leave all that for the savages of the South Sea Islands, or
those fire worshippers we read about. I love a fire as well as the next
fellow, but you don't catch me capering around a blaze, and singing to
it like a foolish goose."

Toby was too busily engaged then to attempt to argue the matter. He had
arranged most of the provisions so that a choice could be made, and now
he ran off a long string of edibles, most of which, however, would
require too much time in the cooking to be chosen.

As is usually the case under similar conditions, they finally d