f fifteen minutes or so," replied the other,
as he proceeded to arrange all the other belongings of the unlucky chum
on adjacent bushes until, as Bandy-legs declared, it looked like an
"Irish wash-day."

Having donned Toby's gray sweater Steve did not feel so badly. He kept
turning around by the fire, first warming one side and then the other,
and all the while dancing up and down so as to keep his blood in good
circulation; for Max had told him to do this, and surely Max knew what
was best.

Toby kept the fire going by feeding fresh fuel from time to time. A fire
was one of the things Toby certainly loved. Whenever he took the time to
ponder over past events that had marked the companionship of these four
lads, the various campfires they had shared in common stood out as oases
in a desert. Toby was apt to figure past happenings as connected with
the time "we had that dandy blaze under the twisted hemlock"; or "that
night I built the champion cooking fire any campers ever had along."

By degrees Steve's apparel dried sufficiently for him to get into it
again. He did not look very spruce and clean though, after his recent
immersion, for the mud had dried. Steve had the appearance of a tramp,
as Bandy-legs assured him, knowing that the other was as a rule addicted
to taking especial pains with his clothes, pressing them out every week
so that the creases would show at the proper angles, and all that
nonsense.

"Well, when we get home it's apt to be dusk, anyway," said reckless
Steve; "and we won't be meeting up with anybody on the road. If we do
I'll dodge in the bushes till they get past. But notice that I got what
I went after, boys!"

That was generally the main thing with Steve, to get what he went after,
no matter how strenuous a time he experienced in accomplishing his aim.
With him the end always justified the means. And looking back over the
experiences of the last two years his chums could remember many times
when this ambition carried the impetuous one into a heap of trouble,
from which he was rescued only after considerable difficulty.

After Steve had fully dressed the four comrades started out once more,
bent on following the shore of the big pond the balance of the way
around, so as to pot such other incautious frogs as might have been
tempted by the brightness of the day to mount the bank, and bask in the
sunshine.

"This fine weather isn't going to stay with us, I'm afraid, boys," Max
remarked, as