CHAPTER XXV

BACK AT THE CABIN AGAIN

“Elmer, you’re sure a wizard when it comes to finding your way through the tall timber!” cried Perk, presently; “because there’s our jolly old cabin dead ahead. Why, you came as straight as a bee could fly to its hive, after loading up with honey.”

“Nothing easier, once you get the hang of it,” laughed Elmer, pleased nevertheless because he had hit it so accurately; while Wee Willie also grinned, as though he considered that he also had occasion to pat himself on the back, seeing that he had fully agreed with Elmer’s deductions in the start.

All of them were delighted to see the cabin again. It may previously have appeared old and dilapidated in their eyes, but just now they forgot all that.

“Me to get a fire going,” roared Wee Willie, after Mr. Codling had been carried carefully into the shelter, and placed on one of the rude “springless beds,” as Perk called the blankets on the floor, under each of which some hemlock browse had been placed so as to make things a bit more comfortable.

“What shall we have for our noonday repast, at eleven in the morning?” demanded Perk, almost beside himself with hunger.

“Better piece off with something that’s ready,” advised wise Elmer; “it would take too long to cook things, in our near-famished state, though of course a fire is necessary.”

“You just bet it is,” said Wee Willie, already bustling about outdoors in gathering the “fixings” for a blaze. “I’m nearly dead for a cup of coffee.”

“It will sure taste like nectar to all of us,” agreed Perk. “Well, if the rest of you say so, we’ll postpone the big meal till later on. Guess we’ll find plenty of stuff handy so as to take the edge off our ferocious appetites; and that’ll give me a chance to lay out a spread so as to make you sit up and take notice this evening.”

They were soon as busy as beavers, hastening back and forth, while the injured man lay there and followed each one with his eyes. Whenever Amos came near how his gaze would fasten hungrily on the boy! It was as if Mr. Codling almost feared this might all be on a par with some of the dreams he had had during his long exile from home; and that he would suddenly wake up, to find himself back under the old distressing conditions.

Presently the delightful fumes of boiling coffee filled the air, and every one commenced sniffing eagerly, as though this excited them almost beyond restraint.

“All ready here!” sang out Perk, in his cheery fashion; “gather round the festive board, and get busy!”

Amos would not dream of eating a bite until he had fetched his father’s breakfast to him. It gave the boy unlimited happiness to be able to wait on the one whose homecoming he knew would make his mother feel so joyous.

Presently all of them admitted they were a hundred per cent better off than before; that “tired feeling” had vanished under the magical influence of the Java; and the sandwiches which Perk made from bread and butter, some cheese, and bits of ham which had been left over at their last regular meal. Then there were crackers of several sorts, which could be used to “fill up the chinks” as Perk put it; so that in the end every one confessed that it was impossible for him to eat another bite.

Mr. Codling continued to smile at times in that queer way.

“Guess he won’t be able to hold it in much longer,” Elmer told himself, “whatever it can be. Twice now I’ve seen him open his mouth as if to speak, and then shut it again, with a little shake of the head. But it’s bound to come out, and I reckon he means to give Amos a little surprise.”

None of them felt much like doing anything of importance that afternoon, for they had had so little sleep during the preceding night that they were tired and heavy-eyed.

Perk, yielding to his special hobby, did go over to a certain spot on the river bank, and fish for an hour or so during the afternoon; with such good luck that they were assured of a fine mess of perch and bass for supper. He set to work cleaning his catch, an operation which Wee Willie did not attempt to interrupt. That was always a nice thing about Wee Willie; when he saw that anyone felt really happy in doing a job for which he himself had no great hankering, he would never attempt to ask a division of the labor. And so Perk not only caught his fish, but made them ready for the pan, and would in probability also do the cooking in the bargain. There never was a more good-natured and willing chum than Perk, as Wee Willie often told himself, with one of his grins; and it is also to be hoped he fully appreciated those winning qualities in the stout youth.

The supper was a grand success.

Perk “blew” himself for the occasion, as he called it, and really prepared enough for two-thirds of a dozen instead of just five mouths.

“Huh! you never _can_ tell in these queer times when you’re going to have company drop in on you,” he remonstrated, when Elmer mildly expressed his surprise at the enormous amount that came to their rough-and-ready table. “Only last night you entertained one stranger at your fire; while I had Mr. Codling pop in on me unexpected like. Then remember how those two guards from the asylum came tapping, tapping at our cabin door the first night we were here? So I believe in preparedness. An ounce of prevention is worth more’n a pound of cure. If anybody should step in, all we’ve got to do is to say ‘sit down, and fill up, friends!’”

Nevertheless when the meal was through it was really surprising how little had been left; for their appetites seemed capable of stretching in a remarkable way, and Wee Willie acted as though he could never reach his limit.

“I declare,” he confessed, after a fourth helping to the stew Perk had concocted from canned beef, succotash, and some cold potatoes, “I’m beginning to suspect my legs must be hollow all the way down, because how else could I stow away what I’ve devoured?”

And after that, of course, Wee Willie might expect to have a deal of fun poked at him in connection with his queer anatomy.

They ate supper inside the cabin, so as to be near Mr. Codling; though of course such old campers as Wee Willie and Elmer, perhaps Perk in the bargain, would have preferred sitting outdoors, so long as the weather was fine, and the “skeeters” not too vicious.

At last, the tin dishes and cups had all been washed up in thorough fashion, Elmer and Wee Willie insisting on doing that unpleasant part of the dining program; though Perk protested that he always did like to “splash things around,” and had even fetched a new dish mop along to try out; but they elbowed him aside unceremoniously, the tall chum saying commandingly:

“Here, you clear out, Perk! Think we’re going to let you have a monopoly of this business? Guess the rest of us want to keep our hands in, don’t we? You’ll be boasting, when we get home, you just ran the whole camp; and we don’t want to get the laugh on us. Now forget it, and talk with Mr. Codling. You know all his folks down home, and can tell him Amos doesn’t overshoot the mark when he says little Peter is a darling, ditto—Louise, and—yes, Kitty in the bargain.”

At that Amos had to smile, because the said Kitty was a big girl for her years, and Wee Willie had been known to fetch her flowers, even a box of candy on one occasion, when she passed her twelfth birthday; he also had a tacit understanding with Kitty to “beau” her to the first barn dance the next Winter, if her mother considered her old enough to attend such jolly gatherings.

Mr. Codling waited until they were all gathered together later on, with the “chores” completed, and the decks cleared. Then he spoke up, just as Elmer had been anticipating would be the case.

“I’ve got something to say to you, Amos,” he remarked first of all; and though his voice trembled, Elmer made sure that it was only through joy, and not because there was any further cause for lingering regrets.

“All right, father,” the boy immediately said, coming to the side of the speaker, and bending over; “I’m ready to tell you anything you want to know, so don’t hold back. I haven’t got a thing to keep from you, remember.”

“But this is something that concerns me, first of all, my boy,” continued the other. “Listen then. You know I vowed never to come back unless I found myself able to take up that terrible debt of mine, and face the world again as an honest man. Yes, and I told you how twice I slipped back after I believed myself on the road to fortune. Well, three turned out to be the magical number with me, Amos; in Alaska I struck rich pay dirt, and I’ve come back with all the money we shall ever need again in this world!”