CHAPTER VALL BUSY AS BEAVERS 

CHAPTER V

ALL BUSY AS BEAVERS

It was some time before the boys could settle down again to sleep. Perk often believed he could catch a distant yap from the ranging hound, and it never failed to give him a thrill. The beast had seemed both big, and inclined to be savage; and Perk could not help shuddering to think of his getting loose from his leash and coming on the cringing lunatic somewhere in the lonely timber.

But finally even the anxious Perk succumbed, and when he again opened his eyes it was to find that daylight had come, with Elmer outside starting up the fire, and some one else rattling the tin pans, as if getting ready for a jolly breakfast.

As that was encroaching on his private preserves, Perk hastened to bob up and assure the others he would soon be on deck, prepared to make a mess of his savory “flapjacks,” as he had solemnly promised to do the very first morning in camp.

Soon every one was busily engaged, for there was bound to be “heaps” of work laid out for that wonderful day. Amos was examining the dilapidated roof of the cabin and settling just how they should go about rendering it waterproof; Wee Willie beat some batter in a tin vessel, under the eye of the self-constituted master of ceremonies (for Perk had actually donned a snow-white peakless cap, fashioned after a regular chef’s headgear, doubtless meaning to have no dispute regarding his recognized rights to the exalted title); while Elmer had taken to looking around outside, especially over in the quarter of the leaning birch tree.

He came over to the fire a little later, and Wee Willie at once detected indications in his face that made him suspicious.

“You’ve discovered something new, Elmer, now don’t deny it!” he immediately asserted.

“What is it?” hastily demanded Perk.

“Well,” said Elmer, quietly, “it’s just this; whoever that man may be, he came back again during the night!”

This information caused all of the others to show fresh interest. Perk was just in the act of tossing aloft his first flapjack, and in his nervousness he actually missed connections, so that the delectable morsel ignominiously fell into the ashes, and was thus lost.

“It wasn’t up to the mark, anyhow,” 

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