That trip to Park Rapids was a memorable one to the boys, as well as to everyone else on the train. Most travelers consider it a dull and tiresome ride but the boys seemed to find a source of never-ending enjoyment in the sameness of the little towns along the road and the long stretches of prairie, broken here and there by patches of jack pine. The almost unbroken series of practical jokes which they played on the trainmen and on each other made the miles slip pleasantly by for the other passengers. It was all done in a good-humored spirit of abandon that angered no one.

The dinner which they devoured at Sauk Center amazed some of the invalid ladies who watched them, but it was only a vague foreshadowing of the meal which they would eat in that same room on the downward trip when their appetites had been whetted by four months of strenuous work in the woods. With a cheer for the town which had fed them so well they boarded the little branch train which was to take them to their destination and resumed their old amusements. At Wadena they welcomed wildly a stray member of the class who had come across on the N. P. to join them. They immediately proceeded to work off on him all the gags which had been developed earlier in the day.

As they neared Park Rapids the spirit of restlessness pervaded the crowd. No sooner had the wheels stopped turning than they boiled out onto the platform amidst the crowd of citizens who had made their regular daily pilgrimage to see the train come in. They lost no time at the station, the baggage could be taken care of in the morning, but swarmed away up the street to the hotel. They selected a cheap hotel—for no matter how much money a man might have at home it was part of the game to keep down the expenses of that trip to the minimum.

Their duffel disposed of, Merton, as manager of the corporation, hurried away to interview the storekeepers to arrange for a shipment of eatables by the stage in the morning and to make an agreement with them for such emergency supplies as they might require through the summer. Scott, with a feeling of pride in his new responsibility, searched the livery stables for two teams, one to haul the baggage and another the groceries they had shipped tip from St. Paul. The others scattered in all directions to explore the town, to sound its resources and locate some amusement for the evening. They returned to the hotel for dinner, a little disappointed, with nothing to report but a moving picture show and a bowling alley.

The whole party was early afoot in the morning to take advantage of the 6:30 breakfast, for there was a big day’s work ahead of them. The former classes had established the precedent of walking to and from camp, and no class now dared fall short of that standard. A twenty-eight mile walk was a big undertaking for men fresh from the classroom, but it had to be done to maintain the class prestige. The people of the town expected it of them and even the stage driver, who had become reconciled to the loss of the fares, took a certain pride in their independence and recited the exploit times without number to the summer boarders who later chanced to be his passengers.

It was found that three of the boys had set out the night before to spend the night at the Fairview Hotel at Arago, half way out, and complete the journey in the morning. Three of the others, inexperienced and not yet imbued with the spirit of the thing, waited for the stage. Four of the remaining ones took the road immediately after breakfast, while Merton and Scott hurried away to get the wagons started. By seven-thirty the two wagon-loads of duffel and groceries were on the road, and the two boys walked gayly on ahead, full of the joy of the open. It was also a precedent that the walkers should reach the camp ahead of the stage and they swung to their work with a will.

The twenty-eight mile walk, such a marvel to those who never walk themselves, was uneventful. At the Lodge, on the south end of Lake Itasca, Scott and Merton overtook the other four walkers, and the six then finished the journey together.

“So that is Lake Itasca,” Merton observed rather thoughtfully, as they followed the road along the hills on the east shore, “the source of the Father of Waters. I remember seeing pictures of it in my geography.”

“Sure thing,” Bill Price answered quickly. “So do I. I recognized it as soon as I saw it.”

“Well, this is something like a forest,” said Scott, admiring the dense stand of pines stretching down the hill to the water’s edge. “I began to think down there below Arago that the whole country was just covered with brush.”

“I wonder where the stage is?” Merton mused looking back over his shoulder, and they quickened their pace perceptibly.

“No matter now,” Scott answered. “We could outrun him from here if we had to.”

“Be easier to pay him to stay behind us,” Bill suggested.

In this way the last three miles passed rapidly and a sudden turn in the road brought them in sight of the camp not more than two hundred yards away. They had heard so much of it from the seniors and seen so many pictures of it taken at all possible angles that they recognized it at once.

“There’s the cookshack up on the hill,” Merton shouted, “and there’s smoke coming out of the chimney, too. That looks good to me. I could eat a porcupine right now, quills and all.”

“There’s the library straight ahead,” said Scott. “I wonder where the other buildings are?”

“There’s the barn,” Bill called, “and here’s the foreman’s house right beside us. Gee, doesn’t that lake look fine from here? I wish it was warm enough for a swim.”

A shout showed that they had been sighted from the camp and they answered with an Indian whoop. They piled eagerly down across the campus and were welcomed enthusiastically by their classmates who started out the night before and by Professor Mertz, who had come up the previous week to get the place in shape.

They all sat down on the library porch and made a preliminary survey of the campus. The lake shore, not over a hundred feet away, stretched north and south; across a quarter-mile of shining water the opposite shore, part birch, part swamp, part pine. The roof of the boathouse peeped over the bank directly in front of them, the big log bunkhouse loomed up to the north, and hidden in the trees to the south were the four small cabins of the faculty. It was a beautiful picture even then, but nothing to what it would be when the trees were in leaf and all the vegetation green.

“Looks pretty fine,” Merton said, “but, what’s more important, how do you like the looks of the cook?”

“Fine,” came the chorus; “he moved in as naturally as though he had always belonged here and has a hand-out waiting for you now.”

“’Nough said,” cried Bill, and they all arose as one man. “Let’s go see the cookshack.”

The cook, who had held despotic sway over many a lumber camp, was waiting for them in the doorway and greeted them cheerily. It was hard to realize that he had never seen any of them before.

“Not much in the way of chuck, yet,” he apologized, “but I got some flour at the store, and there’s bread and butter and cheese and the teapot is on the stove.”

The newcomers dropped into the benches without more ado and ate ravenously.

“Looks like five dollars a plate to me,” Morris chuckled between bites. “I could die eating like this.”

“Chances are pretty good that you will,” Bill purred, “you put in more time at that than anything else.”

“When’s the grub coming?” the cook asked anxiously.

“There is enough on the stage for a couple of meals,” Merton answered, “and a good two-horse wagon-load will be here a little later.”

The cook looked immensely relieved, “Good, there ain’t nothing makes me nervous like an empty pantry.”

They had just finished eating when the stage hove in sight. It was a good three-quarters of an hour behind them. Of course the three boys on the stage had to have a “handout,” so they all ate some more.

Merton pulled out his list of groceries and consulted with the cook. “Jansen, here’s a list of the stuff we have coming on the wagon. You’d better look it over and see whether we have forgotten anything. If we have we can send for it tonight and have it on the stage tomorrow. There are only eggs, and a little butter to get. I want to arrange with some of the settlers tomorrow about supplying us with those things. Have to have some potatoes, too, and we have a couple of cows coming tomorrow.”

Jansen looked the list over with approval shining in every line of his face. “Fine,” he exclaimed, “we can live high on that, but you’d better order some beans pretty soon and some more ginger. I’m strong on beans and ginger bread. You can’t run a camp without ’em.”

“Come on, fellows,” Price called from the doorway, “let’s go have a look at the bunkhouse. I want to select my suite.”

They all trooped down the hill through the pines and across the tennis court towards the bunkhouse.

“This tennis court looks good to me,” said Morris. “I expect to put in many a good hour here.”

“All right,” Merton answered cheerily. “We’ll appoint you a committee of one to smooth it up, patch up the backstop and mark it out. There’s nothing like having work that interests you.”

“Gee,” exclaimed Burns, “those big upper porches look cold enough now, but I’ll bet they make dandy places to sleep this summer. You can lie right in your bunk and watch the moonlight on the lake.”

They filed through the door and stood looking admiringly around them. The whole ground floor, twenty-four by thirty-six feet, was one big club room with a big fireplace opposite the door and plenty of windows. The furniture was built of pine two by sixes, crude but massive and well suited to the log building. In the city the place would have looked rough enough, but there in the backwoods it looked like a castle and the fellows immediately adopted it as such.

“Isn’t this great?” Scott said. “When we get a good big fire whooping up that chimney and our library here, it can rain all it pleases.”

“Yes,” Bill said, “and I’ll bet more than one mosquito will dull his bill trying to bore through those tamarack logs. I’m going to file my claim on this big morris chair right now, and I’ll put on those gloves there on the wall with any man who wants to dispute it.”

The crowd wandered upstairs. It was the same as the downstairs save that there was no fireplace and the only furniture was some twenty steel bunks with wire springs. Big double doors on each end opened onto twelve-foot screened porches.

“Me for the outside, right now,” said Merton, proceeding to drag one of the bunks out onto the north porch.

“Well,” said Scott, “I’ll join you. It may be a little cold at first but we get the pick of the locations if we get out now. There’ll be a rush for it the first warm night. Better take the west end, the sun will not get in on you there so early in the morning.”

“Long head,” Merton answered, dragging his bunk across. “Get a better view of the lake, too. Isn’t that great? There’s the post office up there and the ‘town site’ the fellows used to laugh about. Let’s go see Professor Mertz and find out what there is to be done.”

But they did not have to look for Professor Mertz; he was downstairs waiting for them. He smiled at their enthusiasm over their new quarters.

“Well, fellows,” he began sociably, “I see that you recognize the possibilities of this place for having a good time, and you are not mistaken in it. You’ll have the time of your lives. But I want to call your attention to some of the other features. You must remember that this is the University and everyone will judge the University by what you do here. Think every time before you do anything, what effect it is going to have on the school. Its reputation here depends on you entirely.

“There are five boats in the boathouse; three of them are for your use; two of them, the cedar ones, are reserved for the faculty. The scow is for general use, but no one runs the engine except Professor Roberts, Mr. Sturgis or myself. The old tub of a sail boat you can rig up if you want to. It is not much good, but the fellows usually manage to get some fun out of it. Whether you are in a boat or swimming, be careful. You may think that you are too old for that warning, but two men have been drowned in that lake in the past four years, and they were both as old as you are. Never go swimming alone and never ‘rough-house’ in a boat.

“Next, be careful about fire, both around the buildings and the woods. The woods are very dry now and a match thrown down carelessly may mean a fire which will cost several hundred dollars to put out. You will probably have a chance to fight one somewhere before long and then you’ll understand. Never throw down a match until it is out completely.

“Another thing. Don’t peel every birch tree you see. It will be a big temptation at first to get bark for postal cards, etc., but don’t peel the trees along the roads or trails. It destroys the looks of the woods and is disgusting to woodsmen. When you want some bark find a tree in some out-of-the-way place—there are thousands of them—chop it down and peel the whole of it. This is a park, you know, and we do not want to be accused of vandalism.

“Lastly, remember that you are responsible for the camp. We furnish you with a good equipment and it is up to you to see that the camp is kept in shape, the buildings clean and everything orderly. We’ll help you all we can, but remember that it is your camp.

“I won’t preach to you any longer. You can have tomorrow to get things straightened out and get your bearings. The next day we’ll have a dendrology excursion to catch these trees here before the leaves come out. If you want me you’ll find me in that third cottage.”

The professor chatted awhile before he walked away to let the boys adjust their own affairs—for it was the policy of the camp to interfere with them no more than was absolutely necessary; it helped to develop their independence. On this particular occasion chance deprived them of very much choice in the matter, for hardly had they started a discussion of detailed organization than a rattling of wheels announced the arrival of the wagons with the supplies.

“Talk about your quiet places in the backwoods,” Morris exclaimed, as he ran out with the rest of the crowd, “there’s something doing every minute. You no sooner finish one thing that you have never done before than another turns up.”

“Yes,” Bill retorted sarcastically, “always something new. You’ll have to unload a wagon and then the first thing you know you’ll be eating supper.”

With so many zealous workers the baggage was soon unloaded and stowed away in the bunkhouse; the provisions were neatly arranged under the cook’s directions on the shelves of the little storeroom in the back of the cookshack.

Scarcely had they finished admiring their work when a terrific din broke forth on the other side of the building, a vibrating, metallic clatter that must have startled the deer a mile away. When they tore around the corner to investigate they found the cook grinning from ear to ear, belaboring with an old ax a four-foot circular saw, which was hung from the corner of the building on an iron pipe.

He stopped, panting. “There, I’ll ring her like that fifteen minutes before mealtime and then just three hard taps when the meal is ready.”

It was certainly an effective gong. It had first been used in that neighborhood as an instrument of torture, by a crowd of settlers in a charivari party for a newly married couple some two miles to the north. The distinctness with which it was heard on the school ground on that occasion had been sufficient proof of its efficiency and it had straightway been appropriated by the students.

The ravenous boys forgot their lunch of only two hours before and did full justice to the supper with a will that did the old cook’s heart good. Then as the night was pretty cold they adjourned to a roaring fire in the bunkhouse and soon to a welcome bed.