These were the water events, the tenderfoot carnival (not to be missed
on any account) and the big affair at the main pavilion when awards were
to be made. This last, in particular, would be a gala demonstration, for
Mr. John Temple himself, founder of the big scout camp, had promised to
be on hand to dedicate the new tract of camp property and personally to
distribute the awards.
These events would break the backbone of the camping season, high
schools and grammar schools would presently beckon their reluctant
conscripts back to town and city, until, in the pungent chill of autumn,
old Uncle Jeb, alone among the boarded-up cabins, would smoke his pipe
in solitude and get ready for the long winter.
It was late on Thursday afternoon. The last stroke of the last hammer,
where scouts had been erecting a rustic platform outside the pavilion,
had echoed from the neighboring hills. The usually still water of the
lake was rippled by the refreshing breeze which heralded a cooler
evening, and the first rays of dying sunlight painted the ripples
golden, and bathed the cone-like tops of the fir trees across the lake
with a crimson glow.
Out of the chimney of the cooking shack arose the smoke of early
promise, from which the scouts deduced various conclusions as to the
probable character of the meal which would appear in all its luscious
glory a couple of hours later.
A group of scouts, weary of diving, were strung along the springboard
which overhung the shore.
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