While it was not as pleasant as it might be, having that four-footed wood pirate inside with them, Bluff made no remonstrance. He saw that it pleased Jerry to anticipate getting the skin of the wolf to keep as a memento of the strange adventure; and Bluff could be one of the most accommodating fellows ever known when he felt so disposed.
So once more the boys made themselves fairly comfortable, after the fire had been renewed, and between listening and dozing the long hours passed away.
Neither of the boys would be likely to forget that night of the storm, when they passed so many wretched hours in their rude shelter. It was pretty cold, being without a blanket and unable to move around so as to keep their blood in circulation, though, after all, they realized that it hardly deserved the name of a blizzard.
“Oh, thank goodness, it’s really getting daylight, Bluff!” Jerry called out, at last, arousing the other from a nap.
“And the snow seems to have stopped pretty much, likewise that awful wind,” remarked his companion, as he, too, took an observation.
“Let’s get outside and stretch a bit,” proposed Jerry. “I feel as though I were seventy years old, and every bone and muscle in my body creaks or pains like everything.”
“A good idea, Jerry, and I’m with you,” Bluff conceded. “After we’ve jumped around a while, we’ll get limbered up. Here you go, now!”
They proceeded to carry on as if they had just escaped from an asylum, waltzing this way and that, clasped in each other’s arms, or attempting some sort of darky hoedown—anything to get their muscles in shape.
“There, that makes me feel young again!” declared Jerry, panting as he threw himself down beside the fire.
“The next burning question of the day is: What will you have for breakfast?” demanded Bluff; and with that he commenced to rattle off a great variety of dishes, beginning with ham and eggs, coffee, wheat cakes with maple syrup, and so on down the list.
Jerry presently threw up his hands, and as the other continued to tantalize him by keeping up a running fire of breakfast hints, he even went so far as to thrust his fingertips in his ears.
“That’s adding insult to injury, Bluff,” he told his chum, when he found a chance to speak. “Because I don’t believe we could scare up a scrap of grub this morning, no matter how hard we searched our pockets. We cleaned it all out at suppertime, you remember.”