The Grammar School Boys Snowbound | Page 4

were in their
element, for, of all sports, they loved those that went with winter. All
six were fearless coasters; no hill was too steep, too long or too
dangerous. On the ice Dick & Co. felt all the bounding pulse of life.
This day was the twenty-fourth of December. School had closed in
order to give the Gridley youngsters a free hand on the last day before
Christmas.
The river had been frozen in fine condition for more than a week. Not

more than four inches of snow had fallen, but all the boys knew that the
season gave promise of more snow ere long.
As Dick & Co. skated along the number of other skaters became fewer.
At last they reached a part of the river where they had the ice all to
themselves.
"There's Payson's orchard, Greg," sang out Dave Darrin. "The place
where you got grabbed last fall, by Dexter and Driggs, and carried off
to be shut up in that cave."
"Say, we ought to hunt up that cave, fellows," called Greg. "Whee! It
might make a bully place for a winter camp. Now, that we've got the
two weeks and more of holiday vacation, wouldn't it be fine to slip off
and camp a few days in that cave?"
"Nothing doing," retorted Tom Reade.
"Why not?" Dan asked.
"You remember that I went off, yesterday after school, on a sleigh ride
with Jim Foley?"
"Yes."
"Well, we went by that cave," Tom continued. "Nothing would do but
that we stop. Jim had a lantern on the sleigh. We lit the lantern and got
into the cave. Whew! We nearly got drowned. I meant to tell you
fellows about it, but forgot it."
"How did you come near getting drowned in a cave?" Greg demanded.
"Why, the outlandish place isn't weather-tight," responded Tom. "You
know, the flooring slopes slightly upward from the entrance. There are
a lot of cracks that rain and snow-water leak through. It was all little
rivulets inside the place. Camp? Huh! It'd make a better extra reservoir
for the town water-works, that place would!"
"Too bad!" muttered Greg. "I have had a notion that it would be huge

fun to camp out in such a place."
"I've got another idea about that," spoke up Dan.
"Fire away!" begged Reade.
"A cousin of mine who visited me last summer told me about the kind
of camp he and some of his chums had. It was a sort of manufactured
cave. The fellows dug an oblong hole in the ground. Just like a cellar in
shape, you know. It was eight feet wide and twelve feet long. When
they had it all dug out the fellows laid boards over the hole for a roof.
Then they piled dirt back on top of the boards, and on top of the dirt
they laid the sods that they first dug up. At a corner in one end the
fellows left a square hole in the roof, to use for an entrance. For a door
they made a square board cover to fit over the entrance hole. At the
upper end of the cave they dug into the dirt wall and made a stove.
They dug another hole down from above to connect with it, and that
made a dandy stove and chimney. My cousin and his chums used to do
a lot of cooking there. Then they laid down more old boards to make a
floor, and boarded most of the wall space, too. Last of all, they took up
an old table and old chairs, and they had just a dandy camp! Say,
fellows, why couldn't we have a camp like that?"
"It would do all right for springtime," declared Tom Reade, "but we
couldn't work it in winter."
"Why not?" challenged Dan.
"Not unless, Danny, you want to be the strong man who's going to dig
down into the ground through two or three feet of frost."
Dan looked a bit crestfallen.
"Besides," declared Dick thoughtfully, "every time there was a thaw or
a big rain the cave you're talking about making would be nothing but a
big cistern, half-full of water. But we could dig and fit up such a cave
somewhere in the woods in springtime, fellows."

"Only we don't have much vacation in the spring," broke in Greg
disappointedly, "and it certainly would be grand to go into camp right
after Christmas Day, if we could be warm enough and have enough to
eat."
"It would be great sport," nodded Dick.
"Then let's do it," glowed Greg.
"I suppose you have the camping place all picked out, and permission
to use it," smiled Prescott.
"Well, no," admitted Greg. "But why can't we fix up some sort of
place?"
"How?" Dave Darrin wanted to