Of all the Christmas vacations which Scott could remember he recalled none that had left him such real sensations of pleasure as that three weeks of hard labor in the old transfer shed. It formed almost the only theme of conversation between the two boys for the next two weeks. A month ago Scott would have laughed at the idea of his being able to learn anything at such a place, yet hardly a day passed now that he did not feel that he had been helped by his experience. Moreover, he took a very different interest in the laboring men he saw and seemed to look at everything from a different point of view.

He buckled down to his work with a better will than he could have done after a period of idleness and had the satisfaction of seeing his extra courses rapidly coming to a successful close. The mid-year examinations came bringing terror to the unprepared, but Scott took his Saturday afternoon and Sunday off as usual, and waded through the examinations in the regular routine of his work. He came out of them with flying colors, and found himself a full fledged junior with the privilege of taking part in all the activities of the class.

The most important of these class activities at this time was the formation of the famous Junior Corporation for the management of the camp at Itasca. A camp meeting was called at which Ormand and Morgan, the officers of the last year’s Corporation, explained its organization and workings. Ormand explained the object of the Corporation.

“You see, fellows, it’s like this. That camp is twenty-seven miles from the railroad. There is no boarding house within striking distance of the place, so somebody has to run the cook shack. If an outsider came in to run it he would have to charge big money in order to make any profit; if the school ran it the fellows would always be kicking on the grub; if the fellows run it themselves they can make it cost what they please and have nobody but themselves to kick if they don’t like it. It has always worked out first rate. We kept board down to two dollars and eighty cents per week last summer, had good grub and entertained lots of company.

“Of course it means some work. The school supplies a good cook shack and all the equipment. You will have to elect some good man manager to attend to all the business, and another good man secretary to keep the books, pay the bills and help him out generally. Then the rest of you must back them up in everything they do. Hire your own cook, buy your provisions wholesale and buy your own cows.”

Morgan then explained the organization of the camp crews and the rules of the game as well as he could.

With this information as a guide the new officers were quickly elected and the organization completed. Merton was elected manager and Scott, secretary. Before his experience at the shed Scott would have been afraid of this responsibility, but he had more confidence in himself now and welcomed the experience.

The next few weeks were indeed full ones for the new officers. They levied an assessment of twenty-five dollars from each member of the class to meet the immediate expenses, held long conferences with the former officers, making up grocery lists and collecting details of information which would aid them in handling the various contingencies which might arise in the course of the summer. They signed a written contract with the director of the College defining their duties and privileges. They carried on an extensive correspondence in an effort to locate a suitable cook and find two cows which would answer their purpose. After holding a protracted meeting with the representative of a wholesale grocery company they placed an order for what seemed to them an inexhaustible supply of provisions.

In the bustle of preparation various lines of private enterprise were brought to light. One man had constituted himself a special agent for a certain shoe concern and took orders for all styles of boots, puttees and moccasins. Another was appointed to purchase compasses and all other needed equipment of a like nature; while still another canvassed the class for sweaters, flannel shirts, mackinaws, and riding breeches. Scott added to his official duties the selection and purchase of a canoe which he paid for with the money he had earned at the shed. It was a busy time for everyone and the fever of expectant excitement pervaded the entire class. The tang of spring was in the air and these young savages were yearning for the freedom of the woods.

Two days before the appointed day of departure came the annual banquet of the Forestry Club to speed the parting juniors. It was regarded somewhat as a sacred rite because it was the last meeting of the year when all the classes could be together. By the time the juniors would come down from the woods the seniors would be scattered to the four corners of the country and there was no chance of getting them all together again after that. It was also the time when the embryo orators of the different classes aired their wit in after-dinner speeches. Men had been known to keep jokes secret for a whole year for the sake of springing them publicly at the banquet.

A committee of the Club had made all the arrangements. A hungry crowd some forty strong assembled at the hotel and, as is customary on all such occasions, starved for almost an hour waiting for the banquet to be served. It was a very good banquet and tasted all the better for the delay—maybe that is the reason all banquets are delayed—but everyone was more interested in what was to come afterward than in the dinner itself.

The professor of engineering was in the chair as toastmaster, the director of the College was present and so were all the popular professors. It was rather an honor for a faculty member to be invited if he was not a member of the Club—for it was an independent organization and invited none out of mere politeness. This was pretty generally understood and few who were invited failed to appear. One or two outsiders who had earned the friendship of the Club were also there.

As the last waiter closed the door behind him the toastmaster arose and solemnly proposed that they should all sing “Minnesota.” Every man was on his feet in an instant, for it was traditional that the “Foresters had more spirit than all the rest of the University put together,” and they never neglected to show it at every opportunity. The song had the desired effect; it struck fire which melted all formality and welded the crowd into one homogeneous whole. There were no longer any class distinctions; the faculty were stripped of their dignity. The toastmaster grilled everyone unmercifully. The faculty told all the jokes they could think of on the students and on each other; the students “slammed” the faculty unrestrained. Everyone had the best kind of a time. When the toastmaster finally resigned his seat it was close to eleven o’clock, and there were many under classmen among those present who were already looking forward to the meeting of the next year. There was more than one senior who went home rather sadly thinking that it was the last of its kind for him.

It had been a revelation to Scott. His relations with the faculty had been wholly of the classroom, and he had formed the students’ usual opinion of them as a type. That night he had seen them act like human beings and he began to wonder if some of them were not almost human after all.

The fifteenth of April, the day set for the departure, arrived at last. The train left the Union Depot at nine in the morning, and the boys were eager to reach the depot. The car stopped and they hurried into the station where they found a wild and woolly looking group assembled in the corner of the waiting room. They could not wait to get to the woods and were nearly all attired in true lumberjack fashion, only the pallor of their faces betraying them. They hailed the new arrivals with that exaggerated hilarity that only a crowd of college boys can display. And that hilarity instead of subsiding grew steadily with the arrival of every new addition. They joked each other continually, riled the grouchy baggage man almost to madness and “joshed” every porter who showed himself.

When the train came in from St. Paul the crowd surged boisterously forward sweeping everyone before it. Most of the people recognized the joyous buoyancy of youth, and knowing how useless it was to oppose it, yielded good naturedly enjoying it by a sort of reflected pleasure, but a few resented it wrathfully, thereby making themselves ridiculous. On they rushed across the platform and took possession of the smoking car.