The Boy Scouts First Camp Fire | Page 8

scatter into the brush, so that valuable
timber would be burned, and heaps of damage done. I've stood my turn
as a fire guard myself in the Fall, and was hired by the State too."
"Listen, would you?" said Thad, just then; "what do you suppose is the
matter between Bumpus and Step-hen now? The chances are he's gone
and lost something again and is accusing poor old Bumpus of taking it.
Let's wait for them here, and settle the trouble."
The two in question brought up the van of the trailing patrol. As they
came along Step-hen was venting his disgust as usual over the "mighty
queer way" his things had of vanishing without anybody ever touching
them.
"What's gone now, Step-hen?" asked Thad, as they came up, still
wrangling.

"Why, just to think," called out Bumpus, "he says I never gave him
back that new compass of his, after he showed me how it worked,
before we started on this hike; and I say I did. As if I'd want to take his
silly compass, when I learned how to tell north from the mossy side of
a tree, and the way the sun hangs out up there."
"Well, I just can't find it on me anywhere," complained Step-hen; "and
as I remembered showing it to Bumpus, I thought he was setting up a
game on me by hiding it somewhere about him. He wouldn't let me
look in his pack, either, you know."
"Course I wouldn't!" cried the fat boy, indignantly; "because that'd look
like I half admitted the charge. Guess I know enough about law to
understand that. Just you think real hard, Step-hen, and p'raps you'll
remember where you put it; but don't throw it up at me, please."
The other grumbled something, but made no further charge. From the
suspicious way in which he looked at Bumpus out of the corners of his
eyes, it was plain that his mind was far from convinced, and that
missing compass would be apt to make trouble during the whole trip.
CHAPTER IV.
WHEN THE FIRE WAS KINDLED.
"How are you feeling now, Bumpus?" asked Thad, some time later, as
he once more stopped to allow all the stragglers pull up; for some of the
boys were beginning to look rather fagged, though they tried to hide the
telltale signs, being too proud to own up to any weakness that ill
became a scout.
"Pretty ragged, to tell the truth," replied the fat boy, who was puffing as
he came along. "It ain't the poison I've absorbed in my system, so much
as a weakness that just makes me shiver all over. And Thad, I've
walked this far before, and never felt like this, either."
"Oh! I expected that you'd have that sort of a spell," remarked the other.
"You see, that tumble, and the shock of feeling something biting you,

that was terrible because you were in the dark, must have given your
nervous system a bad jolt. But keep up if you can, Bumpus. In a little
while now we'll be near the lake, and our first camp."
"And just think of it, boys, what a roaring old fire we'll have to-night,"
spoke up Giraffe, craning his long neck to glance around the circle that
had gathered about the leader.
"You'll just leave all that to me, Giraffe," said the patrol leader, sternly.
"Here we are about to get into our first camp, and begin to take up the
duties all scouts ought to learn, so they can take care of themselves, and
be of help to others in the woods. And let me tell you, the first
camp-fire is too serious a thing for you to start it off-hand. So I
positively forbid you to think of using a single match to-night without
permission."
Giraffe shrank back, looking crushed. He had been building high hopes
on having unlimited chances for carrying out his favorite diversion,
once away from the restraints of civilization. But he must learn by
degrees, possibly through sad experience, that a fire is just as terrible in
the wilderness, once it gets beyond control, as in a settled community.
It is a good servant, but a very bad master.
"How far is the lake from here, would you say, Thad?" asked Davy
Jones.
"Not over two miles," was the reply. "You notice that the country is
getting wilder the further we go. And around Lake Omega they say it
beats everything, for you can't see a single house."
"How does it come that this lake, lying so close to Cranford, has never
been visited by any of you fellows?" asked Bob White, who, being a
comparative newcomer, like Allan and Thad, could not be supposed to
know as much about things as the