"I can dress them off in ten minutes," said Willis, "if you don't insist on their being picked and will let me skin them instead; for I can take their skins off, feathers and all, in just one minute apiece." "Go ahead," exclaimed Addison; "Tom, get dry wood from that drift-heap down by the brook and build a nice camp-fire; and Kate, you and Doad unpack the baskets and get the coffee-pot, tin kettle and frying-pan ready. While you are doing that, the rest of us can throw out those old yellow boughs from the bunks, then cut new ones and make the bunks all up sweet and fresh for night; and after that we will drag up a lot of wood for our camp-fire, through the evening." "Shall we not keep a camp-fire burning all night?" Theodora asked. "Oh, yes! let's not let the fire go out!" cried Ellen. "We're a dreadful ways from home, up here in the great woods! How many miles have we come, Ad?" "About seventeen miles, all told." "Yes; do let's have a good roaring fire all night," said Kate. It quite frightened the girls to think how far they were from home, in the forest, now that the sun began to sink behind the tree tops. "All right!" laughed Addison. "Gather lots of wood. It will take piles of it to burn all night." But Theodora made a discovery which gave them a good deal of comfort. "We've got a door to our cabin!" she called out from inside it. "Quite a good door. See," she said, swinging it. "We can shut our cabin up, just like any house, and fasten it, too. Here's a great button on the door-post. Nothing can get in to hurt us after we shut and button our door. Have you got any door to your cabin?" Investigation of our cabin disclosed no door. There was a _button_ on the door-post; but the door had been removed. The girls laughed at us. "A fine house you've got!" said Kate. "No door! You will be carried off before morning by a panther." "Never mind us," replied Addison. "Fasten up your own door, snug and tight." "When we get ready to go to bed," said Willis, "we will _turn our button_; I guess that will answer for us. "But I've got the partridges all dressed," he continued, "and I'm going to cut them up and put them into the tin kettle, to parboil, and then, when they are partly cooked, you can put them into the frying-pan, if you like." "Can't you thicken up some kind of a flour and butter gravy to go with those partridges, Kate?" said Tom. "Why, bless you, Thomas, there's no flour!" replied his sister. "I think I could use Indian meal instead of flour," said Theodora, "though I wouldn't promise it would be as good, since it might taste a little coarse." "Well, try it, anyway," said Tom; "for I like that kind of a gravy first rate." "Oh, it just makes me laugh to hear boys talk about cooking," exclaimed Kate. "They do have such droll ideas!" "Well, I know what I like," said Tom; "and I wouldn't give much for a girl that cannot make a gravy."