Both Dale and Roy were wet through to the skin, yet they did not tarry beside the fire. They relieved the horses. A lasso went up between two pines, and a tarpaulin over it, V-shaped and pegged down at the four ends. The packs containing the baggage of the girls and the supplies and bedding were placed under this shelter.
Helen thought this might have taken five minutes more. In this short space of time the fire had leaped and flamed until it was huge and hot. Rain was falling steadily all around, but over and near that roaring blaze, ten feet high, no water fell. It evaporated. The ground began to steam and to dry. Helen suffered at first while the heat was driving out the cold. But presently the pain ceased.
"Nell, I never knew before how good a fire could feel," declared Bo.
And therein lay more food for Helen's reflection.
In ten minutes Helen was dry and hot. Darkness came down upon the dreary, sodden forest, but that great camp-fire made it a different world from the one Helen had anticipated. It blazed and roared, cracked like a pistol, hissed and sputtered, shot sparks everywhere, and sent aloft a dense, yellow, whirling column of smoke. It began to have a heart of gold.
Dale took a long pole and raked out a pile of red embers upon which the coffee-pot and oven soon began to steam.
"Roy, I promised the girls turkey to-night," said the hunter.
"Mebbe to-morrow, if the wind shifts. This 's turkey country."
"Roy, a potato will do me!" exclaimed Bo. "Never again will I ask for cake and pie! I never appreciated good things to eat. And I've been a little pig, always. I never--never knew what it was to be hungry--until now."
Dale glanced up quickly.
"Lass, it's worth learnin'," he said.
Helen's thought was too deep for words. In such brief space had she been transformed from misery to comfort!
The rain kept on falling, though it appeared to grow softer as night settled down black. The wind died away and the forest was still, except for the steady roar of the stream. A folded tarpaulin was laid between the pine and the fire, well in the light and warmth, and upon it the men set steaming pots and plates and cups, the fragrance from which was strong and inviting.
"Fetch the saddle-blanket an' set with your backs to the fire," said Roy.
Later, when the girls were tucked away snugly in their blankets and sheltered from the rain, Helen remained awake after Bo had fallen asleep. The big blaze made the improvised tent as bright as day. She could see the smoke, the trunk of the big pine towering aloft, and a blank space of sky. The stream hummed a song, seemingly musical at times, and then discordant and dull, now low, now roaring, and always rushing, gurgling, babbling, flowing, chafing in its hurry.