The unusual exertions of the ride and subsequent wood-chopping had really
tired all of the chums, though none of them would publicly admit it. When
Bluff attempted to get up in a hurry for some purpose, he found himself
so stiff he could hardly move, and it was only after much grunting and
three distinct efforts that he finally managed to reach his feet.
Frank only smiled.
He had expected just this, and knew that in a few days the boys would
have succeeded in getting the kinks out of their muscles.
Bluff had insisted that they have fried onions with that glorious
steak, and, indeed, he even prepared a dozen of the same himself, for
Bluff could be very persistent when he chose; Frank called a halt at
this number.
"We may want a few another time, old fellow," he admonished.
"Oh! all right, then. I was just waiting till somebody called me off.
I've shed more tears than Brutus ever dropped at the bier of Caesar. Wow!
some kind person wipe my eyes, please; my hands are too rank to touch my
tear-rag," he declared, and Will performed this friendly office, thinking
that he deserved it after his heroism.
The coffee was soon bubbling on the fire, and the delightful odor of that
fine sirloin steak, together with a second frying-pan full of onions, so
permeated the surrounding atmosphere that had any of the Lasher crowd
been hiding in the vicinity they must have suffered tortures in the
thought that they were debarred from that glorious outdoor feast around
the first campfire.
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