CHAPTER VI

A PROWLER IN THE NIGHT

An event for which the boys had long been waiting now came, after some confusion, to pass. Several requests had been made for something to eat but Ted turned a deaf ear to it until the camp had been put in shape. The noon meal had been a sandwich affair and now the hungry stomachs were demanding something solid. Ted gave orders for the meal.

He and Buck took care of the cooking for that one meal and they had a big job on their hands. The two fires were used to cook beans and soup and warm up coffee and before long the fragrant smell of the food floated through the woods around them. Impatiently the boys awaited their meal.

“Seems like I never was so hungry before!” sighed Drummer, gazing at the big pot of cooking beans with wistful eyes.

“You drummed up a good appetite this afternoon, didn’t you?” someone asked, and the stout boy nodded.

They used a flat stump to cut the bread on and for a general table, finding that its location to the fires made it a handy natural object. Buck organized a number of the boys to go and bring pails of water so that they could be put on the fire as soon as the food was off, to heat for dish water.

“Do we have to wash dishes here?” was an innocent inquiry.

“Well, I want mine washed,” grinned Buck. “If you want to eat from yours without washing, why, go right ahead!”

“Who is going to wash them, Mr. Dalton?” a boy asked.

“We’ll have a volunteer gang tonight,” responded Buck, seeing to it that each boy had a pail. “After that, we’ll have regular squads to do the work. Go to it, boys.”

Ted had found that the supply truck was well filled and figuring even recklessly he was of the opinion that they would not soon have to renew their main supplies, though things such as butter and eggs and milk would have to be taken care of from day to day. Much care and thought had been taken by the leaders of the Boys’ Club in the selection of the goods, and Ted was pleased.

At length the supper was cooked, the beans lifted from the fire and the coffee pushed back to keep warm. “Come and get it!” called Buck, and they obeyed loyally and enthusiastically. Forming in a line they pushed their cups and plates toward Buck and Ted and for some minutes the two leaders were busy dishing and pouring. Within the circle of the fires the boys sat around, most of them silent as they applied themselves to the subject at hand.

“Golly, nothing ever seemed so good at home!” declared Drummer, munching contentedly.

“I don’t think so much of beans,” struck in Ralph Plum. “I wouldn’t eat ’em home!”

“You aren’t home,” was Drummer’s retort. “What do you eat them here for?”

“There isn’t anything else, is there?” retorted Plum.

“I guess not,” replied Drummer. “Any time you don’t want your beans you just let me know, Ralph.”

The little fellow, Tom Clayton, sat close beside Ted as they ate and Ted smiled down into his serious face. “How are you enjoying it, Tom?”

“Great!” was the answer. “I’m glad I could come along, Mr. Thorn!”

“So am I,” agreed Ted. “We’ll have a lot of fun out of this camping trip. You won’t get homesick, will you?”

“No, I guess not,” was the slow answer. “I’ve only been away from home once before this, but I guess I won’t be homesick. Anyway, if I do, I won’t let these fellows see it, because they’ll kid me about it!”

“That’s the spirit!” approved Buck.

After the meal was over came the task which was not welcomed any too cheerfully. A multitude of greasy tin plates and cups lay piled up near the creek and the pails of water were ready. Ted asked for volunteers, and a few of the boys helped the two leaders do the washing and drying. Most of the boys were content to lie around and chatter. When the camp work was finished they all gathered around the fires while Ted addressed them.

“Now, fellows,” he began, when he had claimed their attention. “Tonight is rather an informal time and we’re just getting acquainted. Tomorrow we’ll settle down to real business. Up to now I don’t even know the names of all of you, but I’ll get on to them pretty quickly. In order to get the best results out of our encampment we’ll have to have good discipline and willing workers. For instance, we’ll have to have a wood-gathering committee, a fire committee, a cooking committee, a water committee, and a dishwashing committee. Some of these committees won’t be as popular as others, I know, but we won’t be on the same committees all of the time. Frequent changes will give us all a chance to work at something different. Buck and I will take our share of the work along with the rest of you.”

“That makes me think of something else. Some of you are calling me Mr. Thorn and calling Buck, Mr. Dalton. That’s very nice, but we want to be all fellows here together and so we are just plain Ted and Buck to you. We’ll all work together and have a good time. Now about the tents: we have four of them and that means that there will be five in a tent. We have plenty of room, and Buck will sleep in one of the tents and I in another. For the other two tents I’ll appoint a captain and he is to be in complete charge of that tent. To him you will make any complaint or suggestion and he can take it up with me. We’ll want to go to bed early at night so that we’ll get plenty of good sleep. We’ll be up early in the mornings.”

“Why didn’t we put the tents up in between the trees?” a boy asked.

“Because there will be such things while we are here as thunder storms,” smiled Ted. “And if we do have them we want to be out in the open and not under a tree which might be struck by lightning and fall over!”

This was a thought which had not as yet struck any of them and for a moment there was complete silence. They were all young boys and the woods experience was new to them. Thunder storms had been witnessed by most of them from a secure house or a comfortable bed and the thought that they would now be almost exposed to the elements was somewhat staggering. They looked around and up into the blackness of the crouching mountains.

“Gee, it does get some dark up here, doesn’t it?” inquired one boy, in an awe-struck voice.

The circle of light from the fires was not a large one and the blackness around them seemed an immensity which held untold things mysteriously unpleasant. Buck laughed to reassure them.

“Yes, they don’t have any street lights up here,” he said. “The animals like dark nights!”

“Animals!” cried another boy. “Are there any animals up here? Do they call the water Bear Creek on purpose!”

“I don’t know,” said Ted. “Some day we’ll look up the animals and see if any of them live around here.”

The talk was resumed and under cover of it Buck and Ted conferred. “You think I had better sleep in another tent than the one you are going to have?” Buck asked.

“I think so,” nodded Ted. “You take the one on that end and I’ll take the one at this end. We’ll put the smaller fellows in the two middle tents and that will reassure them a little more.”

“Do you think they are going to be scared?”

“No, not when they get used to the camp, but you see they didn’t have much in the way of daylight today while here and the night seems so black. Probably a lot of them won’t sleep and it will seem an age before the sun comes up tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch. “I guess we had better turn in now.”

The word to this effect was passed around and the boys were not reluctant to turn in. Ted told off Bob Gilmore as the captain of one tent and Charlie Wells as leader of the other one.

“Each one of you will undress by the light of a single lantern which will be hung from the pole of the tent,” he directed. “As soon as the last man is in bed the captain of that tent will personally put out the light. No loud talking after you are in your beds, in fact, none at all would be better, because you’ll keep somebody else awake. Now go to it.”

The fires burned low and the four tents glowed with a subdued light as the boys all prepared for bed. In the tent with Ted was little Tom Clayton and three other fine young fellows and they were speedily in their beds which they had built from boughs and packed leaves. Ted had purposely placed the bed of the small boy beside his own. They were all in under their blankets when he put out the light and crawled in between his own.

The talking in the other tents died down as the lights were extinguished. That some of the boys were restless was attested to by the rustling turnings in their beds. One boy had gathered his boughs with too much wood attached to the smaller branches and they made him so uneasy and uncomfortable that he was compelled to throw most of it out and sleep closer to the canvas covering that served as a tent floor. Some deep breathing announced that a few boys had fallen instantly asleep, tired out with the events of the day.

There was no talking on the part of the boys in Ted’s tent, inspired probably by his presence and the little boy at least did not remain awake long. Ted’s eyes began to close and the last sounds and impressions were somewhat dim. The fire snapped once or twice, the wind blew with a very faint rustle of leaves, and a katydid started his endless fiddling, being joined by several others who tried to out-fiddle him. Then Ted went to sleep.

He slept on for what seemed to be some hours and then a light struck quickly and fleetingly across his eyes. The flap of the tent was half open and he could look out, but there was no repetition of the incident. He was puzzled and sat up.

“Was that from the fires?” he wondered, poking his head out of the tent and glancing towards the two fireplaces.

It was not. Both fires had gone out and not a single spark glowed to show even where they had been. But there was no question in his mind as to whether there had been a light, for the thing had been very definite. He stepped out of the tent, unmindful of the cool, damp earth under his bare feet, and stood there in his pajamas, looking keenly around.

A wandering beam of light came from around the last tent, the tent in which Buck was sleeping, and Ted frowned. “Now, who the dickens can be prowling around with a lantern?” he wondered, starting forward. “I’m going to find out.”