It was a simple matter--getting the camp ready--and the boys thoroughly enjoyed it. As they were to sleep on the ground, rolled in their blankets, they had merely to clear the space about them of underbrush and fallen timber, and build the fire for cooking.
Of course they talked of war as they worked, for they were scouts in khaki, preparing for action.
Ed Rowell claimed for cousin one of the American engineers who fought their way out of German captivity with their bare fists. Batré's older brother was right then cleaving his winged way through clouds of battle in the service of the La Fayette Escadrille. Whitman knew a man who knew a man who was in the 167th Infantry Regiment when it made with others that now historic march, knee-deep in French snows.
Danny said nothing, for he was a quiet, thoughtful lad. But he had vividly in mind a handsome fellow of only eighteen who, until America's declaration of war, had Sunday after Sunday carried the golden cross up the aisle of the little Church of the Holy Innocents to "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Danny had heard his mother say that it was that song which had sent the young crucifer bearing the Red Cross of Mercy right up to the German guns.
But their talk was not all serious. They were brimming over with life, and they laughed and scrapped and worked together with a zest which made even bramble-cutting enjoyable.
It was when the big fire was glowing red and they set about preparing their evening meal that the best part of the fun began. Whoever has not broiled great slices of bacon or toasted cold biscuits on sharpened sticks before a cheery camp-fire, who has not roasted sweet potatoes and green corn in glowing ashes, who has not inhaled the aroma from an old tin coffee-pot, spitting and sputtering on a hot rock, should join the Boy Scouts and hike back to the heart of nature.
Oh, but it was fun! All except the holding in check of savage appetites till the mess should be cooked. Ed Rowell had been detailed to toast the biscuits, and repeatedly threatened to "eat 'em alive" if they didn't brown faster.
Danny, who, with Alex Batré, had been directed to broil the bacon, couldn't for the life of him keep from pinching off a crisp edge now and then to nibble. And yet only yesterday Danny Harding would have turned up his nose at bacon. The stimulating fresh air and the hard work of camp life had begun to get in their good work on him.