It did not take the boys long to dress, and as they emerged from the tents, their faces glowing with health, and bronzed from their life in the open, they were as fine a group of lads as you would meet in a day's travel, or, maybe a day and a half. They were all guests of Dick Hamilton, who, as had been his custom for several years past, had taken a crowd of his chums off to camp on the shores of Lake Dunkirk, a large body of water near Hamilton Corners, where Dick lived. "Ah! Um! Smell that chicken!" murmured Bill Johnson, as he lifted his nose high in the air. "There you go again! Displaying your lack of manners!" objected Fred. "Why don't you wait in patience and dignity, as I do." "Well, wouldn't that melt your collar button!" remarked Bricktop. "Where's the glass case they took you out of, Fred?" "Manners?" asked Dick, as he approached Fred from the side. "Excuse me, but there's something sticking out there." As he spoke he slyly extended his foot, and, a moment later Fred measured his length on the carpet of soft, pine needles of the woods. "Goodness me! Did you fall?" asked Dick, as he looked down, in apparent surprise at his chum. "How careless of you." "Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Bill. "Come here, Fred, and I'll pick you up." Fred arose, smiling rather sheepishly, but not at all angry. He brushed off his clothes, and joined in the laugh that followed. "It's your turn next," observed the young millionaire. "I'll have to keep my weather eye open, Fred." "All right," said the lad who had been tripped. "Well, Hannibal--Alphabet--Jones; art ready for the gathering of the clans who hunger after the flesh-pots of Egypt?" asked Dick. "All ready, Massa Dick," replied the colored cook. "Come on." "First down! One wish-bone to gain!" called Walter Mead, as he took his place at the table set under the tent fly. For the next five minutes the boys were so busy eating the roast chicken, corn bread and other good things that Hannibal-and-the-rest-of-it-Jones, with his knowledge of Southern cookery had provided, that they said not a word. Then, with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction, Bill observed: "There certainly is nothing like a good meal." "Unless it's two," added Bricktop. "I didn't much fancy Dick's plan of taking a professional cook along when we came to camp this year, because it used to be fun to do it ourselves, but our cooking was never like this." "Never, never, never!" exclaimed Fred. "I'll have a little more chicken, if you don't mind, Dick." "Certainly not. There's plenty." "Yes, this is better than having to do it ourselves," said Frank Bender, as he finished polishing off a juicy leg. "No dishes to wash, nothing to bother with after you're through, only have a good time. Dick, you're a brick!" "As long as I'm not a gold one, it's all right," said the millionaire's son. "But I thought you'd agree with me that it was best to take a cook along."