The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks Part 15

"Let's see what kind of tracks he made," said Sahwah, and they all willingly detoured a trifle to examine the footprints in the snow.

"There are some others beside his," said Bottomless Pitt. "What kind of an animal is that, Uncle Teddy?"

Uncle Teddy examined the tracks and nodded his head with a satisfied air.

"You boys ought to know those tracks," he said provokingly. "What kind of scouts are you, anyway? Here, Captain, quit your scowling like a thundercloud and tell us what animal has been taking a walk. I certainly have taught you enough about woodcraft to know that."

The Captain looked at the tracks closely. "I think it's a 'c.o.o.n," he said finally.

"Think so!" scoffed Uncle Teddy. "Don't you know so? Pitt, what do you say?"

"Looks like a 'c.o.o.n to me," answered Pitt.

"And what do you say, Redbird?" asked Uncle Teddy, pulling Sahwah's hair.

"There's where you boys have us beaten," said Sahwah frankly. "We never have had a chance to learn animal tracks."

"I'm sure it's a 'c.o.o.n," said the Captain, his spirits rising with the chance to crow over the girls.

"All right, if you're sure of it, we'll follow the trail awhile and see where he is," said Uncle Teddy. "But you always want to be sure of what you see, after you've learned it once. A good woodsman always fixes a thing in his mind so he'll know it the next time he sees it."

"I'm sure it's a 'c.o.o.n," repeated the Captain. "May we follow the trail awhile?" Eagerly they trotted along beside the footprints in the snow, impatient to have a sight of the animal. This was a new sport to the Winnebagos and they were greatly excited about it. The Captain had forgotten his low spirits and was in the lead now.

"I say, the fellow that spies him first ought to be pathfinder for the rest of the way," he said.

"What does a 'c.o.o.n look like?" panted Sahwah, trying to keep up with him.

"He has a short, thick, striped tail," said the Captain, "and a-- Oh, goodness gracious! Oh, Methuselah's great grandmother!" For just then the wind began to blow strongly from the direction in which they were going, carrying with it an unmistakable odor. With one accord they took to their heels.

"O Uncle Teddy," said the Captain, furious at himself, "you knew what it was all the while! Why didn't you tell us?"

"Well," said Uncle Teddy dryly, "you were so blooming sure it was a 'c.o.o.n that I couldn't contradict you very well without being impolite. 'There's nothing like being dead sure,' I says to myself. And I knew you would never be satisfied until you had found out for yourself."

The Captain, permanently abashed, retired to the rear of the line and ventured no more opinions about anything they saw, and took not the slightest interest when Hinpoha discovered a rare little moosewood maple and identified it by its beautiful green bark.

"Last lap!" shouted Pitt, consulting the map for the hundred and fortieth time. "Turn east by the twin oaks and approach the camp from the rear!

Company, forward march!"

"There are the cabins now," cried the Monkey, throwing his cap into the air. "Maybe I won't sit down and hold my feet up, though!"

"Maybe you won't jump around and get some firewood, though!" remarked Uncle Teddy. "End of the hike, messmates," he shouted, executing a droll dance on his snowshoes and waving his long arms like windmills. "All together, now, three cheers and a tiger for the end of the hike!" And they gave them with a will.

The place where they were to spend that night and the next was an abandoned sugar camp. It had once been a fine grove of trees, but so many had been killed by the boring worms that it was no longer profitable. Two cabins remained standing and were used on and off by hunters during the season.

"Oh-h-h, ours is a real log cabin," cried Sahwah, dancing around in ecstasy when quarters had been a.s.signed. "It's lots nicer than the old board shack the boys are going to have. I'll feel just like Abraham Lincoln to-night, only so much more elegant, because Abraham Lincoln had to split his own rails, and we can sit at ease and let the boys tote our wood for us."

"But-where are the beds?" cried Hinpoha, in perplexity, as they went inside.

"Why, _those_," said Aunt Clara, pointing to some bin-like things ranged in a double tier along one wall. "Those are our bunks."

"Bunks!" echoed the girls in rather a dismayed tone. "We didn't think we'd have to sleep in bunks. We expected camp beds, at least."

"They're quite comfortable," said Aunt Clara rea.s.suringly, "when they're filled with clean straw. Our blankets are in that big box and we'd better get our beds made the first thing, so we can roll into them as soon as we get tired." She bustled around, smoothing out the straw in the bunks with a practised hand and showing the girls how to fold their blankets to the best advantage. "Be sure you have just as much under you as over you,"

she advised them again and again. "Camping in winter is a very different proposition from sleeping out in summer."

Now that the girls had gotten used to the idea of the bunks, they began to think it was a jolly good lark to sleep in them. "If bunks it must be, bunks it is," said Katherine, in a lugubrious tone that sent them all into gales of laughter, "but I never thought I'd live to see the day!"

"Me for the upper berth," said Sahwah, standing on a table to accomplish the spreading of her blankets. It was not long before they were all singing:

"Oh, we're bunking tonight on the side of the wall, Give us a ladder, please, We've slept in many beds, both hard and soft, But never in bunks like these!"

"Bunking tonight, Bunking tonight, Bunking on the side of the wall!"

And they raised such a din with the chorus that the boys came streaming over to see what the fun was about and to inquire casually if supper wasn't nearly ready.

"Goodness, no," answered Nyoda; "we've just got our beds made. Go overpower Slim, if you are hungry, and take his bottle away from him. By the way, which cabin is to be honored by the smell of the cooking?"

"The log cabin is the largest," said Uncle Teddy, "and it has both the fireplace and the little stove. The other is just a sleeping cabin. I guess the honor is yours. All aboard for the dining car! Where's that canned soup? Bring in the wood, boys, and make a cooking fire in the stove. You know what a cooking fire is, I suppose. Everybody get to work.

Too many cooks can't spoil this broth."

They flew around, getting in each other's way dreadfully, but under Uncle Teddy's and Aunt Clara's able management they did contrive to accomplish the things they were trying to do, and in less than no time the supper was steaming on the table.

"Maybe I won't do anything to that soup and that creamed fis.h.!.+" sighed Slim, his face beaming at the sight of the banquet spread before him.

"Maybe it won't do anything to him!" said Katherine in an aside to Sahwah. "I got a whole teaspoonful of Hinpoha's old talc.u.m powder in the cream sauce before I discovered it wasn't flour, and then it was too late to take it out again."

"Never mind," Sahwah giggled back, "it's so hot you can't taste it, and it won't last long enough to get cold. Your secret is safe in our stomachs!"

The paper plates made a grand glare in the fireplace after supper was over and in its light Katherine and Slim gave a Punch and Judy show until Slim showed symptoms of bursting from want of breath, whereupon the play came to an end and it was discovered that Bottomless Pitt had fallen asleep in a corner.

"Hide his shoes!" suggested the Monkey, and promptly took them off and tied them by strings to a tack in the ceiling.

"Let's enchant him altogether," said the gifted Katherine, and fastened the little mustache to his lip. Then they stuck his head full of paper curls and powdered his face with flour. The effect when he woke up was all they had hoped for. They had set a small wall mirror on the floor beside him, so he got the full benefit of his altered appearance on his first glance around. Uttering a startled yell, he sprang to his feet, looking wildly around. Brought to himself by the laughter on all sides, he shook his fist fiercely at Slim and the Captain, declaring that he would make the fellow who did that eat soap. As Katherine was the "fellow" in question this only increased the merriment at his expense.

Slim leaned against the wall so helpless from laughter that he didn't even resist when Pitt climbed on his shoulders to haul down his shoes, but went on chuckling violently until he sagged to one side and down came both boys in a heap, shoes, tack and all.

"I wish you boys would go home," said Katherine primly. "You're altogether too rough for us little girls to play with. I think it's horrid and nasty to play tricks on people when they're asleep." From her gently shocked and disapproving expression you never would have guessed that she was the one who had started it all.

"Come on home, fellows, we're invited out," said Uncle Teddy, with a pretended injured air. "It's time we little gentlemen were in the hay-I mean the straw. Come on, Pitt, never mind looking for the tack; Mother will find it when she gets up in her stocking feet to see if she locked the door!" With which shot he retired in haste through the doorway and over to the other cabin, and just in time, for Aunt Clara sent a s...o...b..ll flying after him that fell short by a bare inch.

Then she closed and barred the door, fixed the fire with hardwood which would last the rest of the night, plastered adhesive strips over the various blisters which the Winnebago feet had acquired on the long march, and tucked them all in warmly with a motherly pat and a goodnight kiss.

After a twenty-mile walk in the open air a hard plank would be a comfortable resting place, and the straw filled and blanket padded bunks were far from the hard plank cla.s.s. For the first time in the history of Winnebago sleeping parties there was strictly "nothing doing" after they were tucked in. Most of them fell asleep during the process of tucking.

Thus it was that when the first thump came at the door n.o.body stirred. A second thump followed like a blow from a battering ram. Aunt Clara sat up.

"Who's there?" she called. No answer save a series of blows and thumps that threatened to break the door down. The rest were awake by this time, trembling in their beds.

"Theodore, is that you?" shrieked Aunt Clara above the noise. "What do you want?" Again came a shower of blows, as if somebody were trying to force their way in with an axe. This time the bars gave way and the door swung inward. There was a loud bellowing, roaring sound, which seemed to their startled ears like a deep-throated whistle, and into the cabin there walked a cow. The girls shrieked and disappeared under the bed-clothes, for to their excited fancy she looked like a wild animal.

"Shoo, get out!" shouted Aunt Clara, throwing her slipper with neat aim into the cow's face. Bossy looked reproachfully at her and walked farther into the cabin, standing close beside the row of bunks.