Jim glanced up, saw the determined face and stalwart form of his brother; saw Tug keeping quiet and showing no intention of interfering; saw the awful willow. He rose quickly from his seat, and darted away into the scrub alders and willows as hard as he could run, but not towards the rushes.
Aleck didn't follow him. "Never mind," he said. "Go on with your supper, Katy. That boy gets those rushes before he has any grub to eat or blankets to lie in, unless you both vote against it, and I don't think you will, for it was a reasonable order."
"Well, Captain," said Tug, "I think we might ease up on it a little. It was a little rough on The Youngster sending him alone in the dark to get the stuff. If you had sent me with him, I suppose he'd have gone fast enough. If you'll say so now, I allow he'll surrender and save his hide. For that matter, I don't mind getting 'em alone if you'll let the kid go. I was going to propose it myself just as you gave the order."
"That's very kind of you, Tug; but I couldn't allow you to get them alone. You may help if you want to."
"May I tell him so?" Katy asked, eagerly.
"I'll find him--look out for the bacon;" and the girl went off into the gloom and the bushes, calling, "Jim! Jim!"
It was a good while before she came back, and the boys, tired of waiting, had forked out the bacon, and were eating their meal, which was what the poets call "frugal," but immensely relished all the same.
Suddenly Katy and the culprit stalked out of the ring of shadows that encircled the fire, bearing huge bundles of yellow rushes.
"That ain't fair!" cried Tug. "You ought to have let me gone, Katy."
"Oh, I didn't mind, and I wanted Jim to hurry back."
"I didn't want her to carry none," said Jim, more eager about self-defense than grammar. "If I give up, I want to give up all over, and not half-way."
"Good for you, Youngster," Aleck shouted, leaping up. "Give us your hand!"
Thus peace was restored, and the boy sat down happily to his well-earned supper, while the older ones spread the crisp reed-straw. Finding there wasn't quite enough, they went off to the marshes and brought two more armfuls, which made a warm and springy couch for the whole party.
These "rushes" were not rushes, properly speaking, but the wild rice which grows so abundantly on the borders of the great lakes, and throughout the little ponds and shallow sheets of water that are dotted so thickly over Wisconsin and southern Minnesota. It is like a small bamboo jungle, for the close-crowding stiff reeds often stand ten feet or more above the water. They bear upon the upper part of their stalks a few ribbon-like leaves, and each reed carries a plume which in autumn contains the seeds, or the "rice."