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50
THE OUTDOOR CHUMS

with that glorious steak, and, indeed, he even prepared a dozen of the same himself, for Bluff could be very persistent when he chose; Frank called a halt at this number.

"We may want a few another time, old fellow," he admonished.

"Oh! all right, then. I was just waiting till somebody called me off. I've shed more tears than Brutus ever dropped at the bier of Caesar. Wow! some kind person wipe my eyes, please; my hands are too rank to touch my tear-rag," he declared, and Will performed this friendly office, thinking that he deserved it after his heroism.

The coffee was soon bubbling on the fire, and the delightful odor of that fine sirloin steak, together with a second frying-pan full of onions, so permeated the surrounding atmosphere that had any of the Lasher crowd been hiding in the vicinity they must have suffered tortures in the thought that they were debarred from that glorious outdoor feast around the first campfire.

"Look there!" said Jerry, quietly, pointing as he spoke.

"It's a little chipmunk come to find out what all this row is about here," remarked Frank, tossing a piece of bread toward the cunning animal. "If you don't do anything to frighten them