"And go to the races? Sure!" put in Billy Worth, asking and answering the question all in one breath. "Wonder we never realized how near Queensville we'd be!"

"Yes, we'll let the race meet upset all our plans and we'll go home with nothing to show for the whole trip," muttered MacLester, with a tremendous yawn.

Jones came up with a lot of green weeds, twigs and leaves for the fire just in time to hear Dave's comment. He dropped the armful on the blaze, producing a smoky "smudge" as protection from mosquitoes, and sat himself down cross-legged upon the ground. Then very deliberately--

"David, I really think you better go to bed," he said. "You're tired and cross. Go to bed, so as to wake up early in the morning and hear the birds sing," he added soberly.

"Possibly I _am_ somewhat fatigued," was the cutting response, "and being so, you will kindly pardon me if I don't tear any b.u.t.tons off laughing at such a positively brilliant witticism."

Paul grinned his appreciation of this thrust but before he could answer, Phil Way broke in: "Why, no! The races needn't interfere with our plans at all. Who knows but what a day or two will end the whole expedition so far as anything the woods contains is concerned? We wouldn't want to hike back right away! We're after fun as much as anything, aren't we?"

"And the most fun I can think of right this minute is to get some sleep," Dave replied. Then with a cushion from the car for a pillow he stretched out upon his blanket. "Happy day when we get the tent up and go into camp right, about to-morrow night," he said, as if to himself.

And if there was a note of irritation in his tone it was because he _was_ very tired. Dave was a trifle gloomy and occasionally the least bit sour by disposition; but in this instance it must be remembered that he had been at the wheel of the Thirty all day; also, that the rest of all the boys had been much disturbed the night before.

"Really believe I am '_somewhat fatigued_,' myself," chirped Paul, a few minutes later, gay and lively to the very last. For scarcely had he added: "Gee! This is a _downy_ couch!--Down about a foot too far!" than he dropped off sound asleep on his blanket spread over the gra.s.s.

Billy and Phil were not long in following the example of the other two and presently the only sound to break the silence was the tinkle of bells where some sheep were feeding in a pasture across the little stream.

Tired humanity finds rest and comfort even on the bare ground when more conventional beds are not obtainable. Yet Dave was right. Another night, when a permanent camp had been established, might easily show a marked improvement in the lads' situation. Not but that all four were happy and contented just as they were! Any one of them would have a.s.serted emphatically that he was having a fine time. But--confidentially--a nice dreamy nap on the soft gra.s.s beneath some tree on a warm afternoon is one thing, and sleeping all night on the ground is another. Even the Auto Boys, in strictest confidence, mind you, would have admitted it.

Time was that, when sleeping out, whether in the open as on this occasion, or in the hillside hut of Gleason's Ravine, the boys found themselves subject to a certain degree of nervousness. The distant shriek of a locomotive whistle on the still night air might cause any or all of them to start into partial or complete wakefulness, uncertain whether the sound was not a human voice. The heavy barking of a dog far away, yet in the silence and the darkness seeming very close, was apt to produce a similar effect. The certain conviction that the sounds came nearer, being directed, indeed, straight toward the camp, easily impressed itself upon high-strung imaginations.

A considerable variety of experience of this character is common to most camping parties whose members have seldom slept with no roof but the sky, or none but a bit of canvas, at the most. It would not do to say they are caused by timidity. But rather they are the result of surroundings wholly unlike those to which body and mind have been accustomed.

But there are delights in sleeping out of doors which those who have never experienced them can scarcely imagine. Even though the couch be "downy" after the manner Paul Jones described, there are compensations.

Of course there must be sufficient covering to keep one warm, and a roof of some kind when it rains. With these provided, soft mattresses may well be dispensed with. The company of the stars, the good, fresh air, the music of the breeze in the branches above--these and much more will be bountiful recompense.

Every one of the Auto Boys would have endorsed these remarks and with enthusiasm, I am sure. Dave may have wished for a bed in an established camp rather than the one he had on the bare ground. They would all have voted for that. A pillow, even though made of a blanket-end spread over fresh pine twigs or clean, freshly gathered gra.s.s, beats an automobile cushion as a head-rest. This no one would deny. And if the established camp means one thing, and the roadside resting place the other, it is very well to choose the former.

The degree of comfort is the only question. The delights of out-of-doors exist as certainly one way as another. Thus, for instance, in either situation, are the stars, whether they look down in the tranquillity of a calm, still night, or through broken, storm-tossed clouds, most excellent and interesting company.

Now the whole purpose of this digression from the story is to make clear the _reason_ back of the simple statement that the Auto Boys slept soundly. Notwithstanding their strange surroundings and their lack of a permanent camp's greater comforts, they pa.s.sed the night in unbroken rest. If they awakened at any time it was merely to turn over and fall asleep again. If in the interim they noted, drowsily, the stars still bright, the sky still clear and the promise of fine weather to-morrow, it was merely this and nothing more. The apprehensions that at one time would have come to them that possibly danger lurked in the deeper shadows they rarely if ever experienced now.

And let no one suppose it is not something of a trial to desert one's snug resting place upon the ground in the morning, quite as much as it is to leave a soft, warm bed indoors. The temptation to indulge in just one more little snooze of five minutes, ten minutes or whatever time one thinks he might possibly allow himself, is quite the same. Complete wakefulness and ambition return more quickly in the open air and buoyancy of spirit is usually greater--that is all.

With the responsibility of breakfast on his shoulders Billy Worth was the first astir. The sun was well up and all the woodland was merry with the songs of birds. Robins piped musically from the old rail fence.

Bobolinks, jays, bluebirds, chattering blackbirds and even crows added their voices to the odd combinations of melody. In some not distant pasture a boy was calling loudly as he drove up the cows.

Into the cool, clear brook where the swift current eddied among some stones, Billy plunged hands and arms elbow deep. He dashed the water over his face with a half-shiver and ran to the towel left hanging over night on the steering wheel.

"You fellows going to get up?" he inquired abruptly.

"Yep! Right away!" came the response from Phil, and with a reluctant sigh he sat up and looked about him. From Dave and Paul came no answer.

"I'm going to get a bucket of water at the creek. I'll be back here in about a minute, and anybody who's not up is going to get ducked! So there's fair warning!" announced Mr. Worth. There was a note of determination in his voice.

Maybe Billy even hoped the two still stretched snugly in their blankets would fail to take him at his word. He would soon show them whether he meant what he said or not, he thought. But by the time he reached the brook Dave rose slowly and stretched himself. Seeing this, young Mr.

Worth lost no time.

Half filling the small bucket, he raced back to camp. The distance was only a few yards. Two more quick steps and he would have reached the prostrate Paul; but suddenly as if shot from a gun that young gentleman leaped to his feet.

"Just saved _yourself_!" laughed Worth, making a move with the bucket as if he thought a little cold water judiciously applied might be a good thing anyway.

"Well, you want to remember that I gathered all the stuff for the smudge last night, and I need my rest," said Jones with a half injured air but with a sly smile, too.

"Well, that's so! Five minutes' work does quite exhaust some people,"

Billy returned with friendly sarcasm. "If you could possibly wiggle a little firewood up this way and Phil will get the grub out while Dave puts the blankets and things away, I'll see if we can't have a light collation in the shape of breakfast."

Way was already kindling the fire with the remnants of last night's fuel supply. Paul acted upon instructions with reasonable alacrity and a fine bed of coals was ready by the time the bacon was in one frying-pan and several large potatoes, washed, peeled and sliced, were in another.

Coffee and bread and b.u.t.ter completed the menu, and as a fine appet.i.te is another of the delights of open air living, the call to breakfast was answered a great deal more promptly than Chef Billy's earlier call to get up had been.

So was another day begun. So a little later was the Thirty again measuring off the hard, smooth clay of the road while the bright June sun and pleasant breezes combined to set off most delightfully every one of nature's early summer charms.

For mile upon mile the Auto Boys' route was bordered by rich pastures, waving meadows and the cultivated fields of a fine farming country. The wheat was coming into head. The oats marked the long, parallel lines of the drills like millions of tiny soldiers in green uniforms ma.s.sed regiment upon regiment. Farmers, their sons and their hired men were busy with cultivators and with hoes in many a field where the young corn was starting off vigorously, as if having particularly in mind that growth expected of every good corn field, "knee high by Fourth of July,"

and meant to establish a new record.

Surely there's nothing to equal motoring as a means of seeing the country. Not only are the constant change of landscape and constant succession of new scenes which the railway traveler may enjoy, to be had in an automobile but more--very much more.

The motorist gains a great deal that the railroad pa.s.senger inevitably misses. For the man on the train the musical clang of the dinner bell as one pa.s.ses near some farmhouse, for instance, is lost--swallowed up in the noise and rush of the locomotive. The sweet scent of the wild crab apple can never make its presence known in the skurrying currents of air sweeping constantly aside from and after the wheels of steel. And these are but samples of countless impressions upon the senses the automobile tourist experiences, which he who journeys by rail may meet only by rare chance.

The difference is vast. The Auto Boys discussed the subject with keen appreciation of their good fortune in owning a machine.

"Why!" said Billy Worth, "it amounts to the same thing as the difference between pictures and actual life. You can lay eyes on a scene like that young fellow plowing, over yonder, say, in any art store. You can see the green of the gra.s.s and the brown of the ploughed land. See the trees and the old rail fence in the background and the team of horses and the driver. But it doesn't mean anything like as much as when you can at the same time catch that smell of the ground just turned over and hear that hired man calling out to his team. Hear him? Hear that chap yonder, now?"

And through the air, rich with the fragrance of the freshly ploughed earth came in l.u.s.ty tones: "Ha-a-a-aw! Haw, there! Molly! You great big haystack, why don't you ha-a-w?"

Certainly Billy was right.

CHAPTER IX

THE CRAFTY PLAN OF MR. GOUGER

The late afternoon sun shone with a softened light in the valley through which Wolf creek flowed dark and sluggish from the Ship woods. The stream itself looked very dark, indeed, where the shadows of the trees lay on the deeper pools. Where the sunbeams struck the ripples the water had a brighter, clearer hue and tinkled sweetly, soft and low, for the current was moderate.

Looking up stream from the low wooden bridge at the public road, one could see that a sharp, irregular, wooded steep marked the limits of the valley on the east. The rise of ground began only two score yards distant from the water and with it began, also, a thick growth of mostly small trees and brush.

Rough ledges of sandstone and conglomerate rock cropped out of the earth in many places here, but the strip of land between the stream and the hillside was cleared of timber and lay quite level. Two parallel paths through the coa.r.s.e gra.s.s and among the straggling bushes marked a primitive roadway midway between the slope and the creek. It extended back through the valley, apparently, to where the woods a quarter of a mile distant from the highway, stretched down from hill to hill, hiding the creek and all beyond.

As the sun was going down there rolled along the unfenced public road skirting for nearly two miles this southern boundary of the Ship woods, a heavily laden touring car.

"The bridge! The creek! That old trail through the valley--By Jinks, we're here!" cried a shrill young voice from the car. The machine had come to a halt where the rough road led back from the highway just before the bridge was reached.

"Yes, we're _here_ and blessed if I see anything very thrilling about it!" came another voice, in tones of decidedly less enthusiasm. "At any rate, though, we _are here_."