Page:The Outdoor Chums.djvu/30

20 Both Frank and Will laughed heartily at this, in which they were joined by Nellie Langdon and Violet Milton.

"Pshaw!" scoffed Jerry, turning a bit red at the same time, "if others are silly enough to make pack-horses of themselves, and lug all such things into the primeval wilderness, why, of course, I'm willing to help dispose of them when the time comes; purely out of good-heartedness, you see, for it makes their loads lighter. Just drop that subject, boys, and put me down for a bottle of maple syrup; for when Frank gives us some of those famous flapjacks he's told about so often, we ought to have the proper thing to go with them."

So they talked the thing over from beginning to end, and it looked as if the team Frank expected to engage would have their work cut out for them, hauling all this camp stuff over the roads to the point beyond the head of the lake.

The boys were evidently eager to get to work, and hence the conference presently broke up, Jerry heading in one direction, and Frank and his sister, with Bluff finding some plausible excuse for hanging on, going in another.

Later on that day, while Frank was at the big grocery store, giving orders to have the various edibles put up so as to be ready on the following