fate.

"Yes, Mr. Tortoise, you'll have to learn how to crawl better than that,
if you expect to stay with this fast crowd," declared Tom Betts.

"But every time I started to get out," William declared, ruefully,
"somebody would stick his foot in my face, and climb all over me. Then
the blessed thing dropped flat, and left me swimming all alone. Of
course I thought it was some more of Ted's fine sport, and I hoped you
chaps were flagging 'em. After that the water came in on me. Ugh!"

"What did you think then, old molasses in Winter?" asked Bobolink;
shaking the last of the water out of his precious bugle, and carefully
wiping its brass mouthpiece with his handkerchief.

"Why," said William, grinning, "at first I thought the river had
overflowed its banks, and was going to carry me all the way down to
Stanhope. Then I heard the wind and the thunder, when it struck me
there was something of a storm. So I just laid still; for I knew you
fellows wouldn't want me bothering around while you worked like fun to
hold the rest of the tents from going by the board."

"Listen to him, would you, Paul?" exclaimed one of the others. "He knew
all along we were hard pushed to hold out, and yet he just snuggled
there, and wouldn't give a helping hand. What kind of a scout are you,
anyway, William?"

"Well," returned the accused one, in his drawling way, "I didn't want to
cut a hole in the canvas, you see; and I couldn't get out any other way.
Come to think of it, I don't generally carry my knife around in my
pajamas, like some fellows do bugles, and such trash."

"Rats!" flashed back Bobolink, disdainfully, "you're just jealous of my
noble calling, that's all."

"He's always calling, ain't he, fellows?" asked William. "I expect to
see him sit up in his sleep some night, and scare us half out of our
lives by tooting away to beat the band. I'm going to get up a petition
that the old horn be muzzled every night before we go to our little beds
on the hemlock browse."

A fire was, after some little trouble, started. Paul had been wise
enough to keep some fine kindling in his tent for just such an
emergency. Even had it been otherwise he would have known just how to
get at the heart of a dead tree, which would yield the necessary dry
wood to make a beginning. Such hunter's tricks were well known to Paul,
likewise to Wallace; and before this tour came to an end most of the
others would have picked up scores of such bits of knowledge,