"You fellows can laugh, if you see anything funny in it," stated Charley reproachfully. "You wouldn't if you were me. You lit on the sand or water, but I landed broadside on a slab of rock. Well, there's no use trying to catch Clarence. He's singing 'Home, Sweet Home,' with four feet. I guess we are as near the camp as we are Jupiter, so we might as well go ahead." So ahead they marched, looking more like a trio of hoboes than possible investors in a big enterprise. A walk of a few miles brought them in sight of a cluster of white tents, and they hastened their steps, knowing that their destination was not far ahead. They paused at the first tent, the largest of the cluster, and evidently the eating tent, for they could see through the open flap two long tables with rude seating benches running down the middle, and a heap of tin dishes on a table in one corner. Outside a big, powerful, sweating negro was kneading bread on a dirty-looking bench, upon which a protruding stove-pipe from the tent was sending down fine flakes of soot. "Mister Murphy's dun fudder up the road apiece by the machine," he informed them in reply to their questions. "Be you gentlemen going to stay for dinner?" They told him that they were not sure as yet, and hurried up the road, eager to be away from the odors of the camp. "Golly," exclaimed Chris, "did you-alls notice de bench dat nigger was makin' bread on? I'll bet dar was a solid inch ob dirt on de top ob hit. Dat nigger's been scaling fish, chopping up meat, and making bread on dat same bench for de past six months widout washin' hit up once. Huh, if I was his boss I'd give him a licking for sho'."