"Captain," said he to Skinny, "if you will detail two of your men to bring some water, we'll get started. Of course, if we were going to make a regular camp we should see that there was water near. We'll have to carry it this time, but it isn't far to the top of the hill. One of you might help me with this basket; there seems to be something in it." Fifteen minutes later we were all at the top of the hill and had brought some sticks from Plunkett's woods for a fire and a curl of birch bark to kindle it with. "I understand that you boys came near burning up the woods and village once with a fire up here," said Mr. Norton. "We must be careful about that. Fire is a good servant but a very hard master. We do not need a big blaze for a campfire, so hot that we cannot sit around it. All we need is just enough to look cheerful, to heat our coffee, and furnish enough hot coals for cooking this beefsteak." He was unpacking the basket while he talked, and Skinny was lighting the fire. "I don't know that I can tell you anything about making fires and cooking. You boys just about live out of doors in summer, so far as I have observed. You are in great luck to have your homes in a small village. If you should play some of your pranks in a city, I am afraid that you might become unpopular and the police might get after you. Boys in great cities, like Chicago or New York, know little of the freedom and sweetness of country life." He went over to a little clump of trees and came back with a small branch, from which he stripped the leaves and twigs. When he had finished he had what he called a "pot hanger" of green wood, about four feet long and with a kind of crotch at the smaller end. He put the big end under a stone, the right distance from the fire, and drove a short, crotched stick into the ground to hold the pot hanger over the blaze at the right angle. When that was done all we had to do was to hang a pail of water on the end of the pot hanger and wait for the water to boil. "I thought that we wouldn't bother with potatoes this time," said he, "although they make good eating when baked in hot ashes, as you boys probably know. Mrs. Norton put in a whole stack of bread and butter sandwiches and some other things, which we must get rid of somehow, and Mrs. Smith gave me this bag as we were leaving the house. I don't know what is in it, and she told me not to open it until the feast was ready." We all kept our eyes on the bag and wondered what was in it. I thought that I could make a good guess, being better acquainted with Ma than the other boys were, but I couldn't be sure.