Buffalo Roost. Frank H. Cheley
to follow any other standard than the one we have set for ourselves here in this little group. I am hoping that we will never find any type of social fellowship any more attractive to us than this clean, wholesome, out-of-door life that we have learned to love so well. The time will come, fellows—did you ever think of it?—the time must come when we will not be able to gather at these fires and chat together of our mutual interests and common woes. But I hope the time will never come when we can forget the good things for which we stand, day by day, in our living.
"Willis, stand up here by the fire. I want to say to you, my boy, that we are proud to have you as a brother and that we feel confident that you are a real addition to our number. We want you to be a real, live member—to enter into the spirit of our organization. Our letters, O.F.F., stand for a very simple slogan, one that has meant great things in the lives of every one of us fellows, and one that will mean great things to you if you take it into your life and let it work. It means that from this night on you will be more interested in the welfare of others than of yourself. O.F.F.—Other Fellow First. Give me your hand. Do you promise that you will live a clean life, physically, mentally, and morally? Do you promise that you will forget your own interests in helping others, that selfishness will have no place in your life? Do you promise that you will not give your support for any reason to anything that to your mind is beneath the honor of a gentleman? If so, say, 'I do.'"
Willis lifted his eyes to Mr. Allen's, and, with a pressure of his hand, he answered in a clear voice, "I do!"
"I take great pleasure," continued Mr. Allen, "in welcoming you as a brother."
The other fellows arose, and there was a general handshaking, followed by cries of "Speech!" "Speech!"
"All I have to say, fellows, is that I, too, am proud of every one of you and of everything for which you stand, and that I'll do my best to be a worthy member. Thank you for the honor you have shown me by asking me to be one of you."
They sat a long time that evening, talking and exchanging ideas, for there was something nearly bewitching in the fire and the view and the friendship.
CHAPTER IV
Willis Becomes Interested in Gold Mines
The next four weeks passed by very slowly to Willis. Mr. Allen had gone to the annual summer camp with a large number of the Association boys. It was a State encampment, held in that very odd and interesting part of the second range known as Cathedral Park. Willis had been very anxious to go, for he knew it would be a very new and profitable experience for him. Mr. Allen had asked him to go as a Leader, to have charge of one tent of seven boys. He had never been to a camp of any kind, to say nothing of a mountain camp, so it was a great disappointment to him when his mother had told him that he had better not go this time. His aunt had grown worse as the hot weather came on, and his mother explained that she could not do without him in case his aunt should pass away.
He understood perfectly and knew that his mother's request was reasonable, so had contented himself by offering to help out at the Association in Mr. Allen's absence. He was anxious to give something in return for all Mr. Allen was giving him. Then, too, it gave him an opportunity to watch the development of a good many of the cocoons and chrysalides that the nature study club had placed in glasses in a window of the reading room.
He had been making sketches of the development of several butterflies. This kind of work he dearly loved. He would spend hours, sometimes, watching a delicate insect emerge from its cocoon and slowly dry its dainty, crumpled wings until it was able to fly.
One day he sat sketching an immense Ichneumon fly that had just emerged from a Tawny Admiral chrysalis.
"You can't always tell," he was saying to the little group that were watching him. "Nature fools you sometimes. Mr. Caterpillar, who built that clean, cozy little house, and he was a fine, big, healthy fellow, too, expected to be somebody one of these days—a beautiful butterfly like the frontispiece of that nature book—but he got into bad company and got 'stung.' Now, instead of hatching a butterfly, out comes this robber fly, a long, lean, sleek-looking fellow that has been living for weeks on the body of that poor caterpillar, and we didn't know it. You want to watch out who you run with, fellows, or you're liable to turn out 'Ichneumon men' instead of gentlemen." He laughed as he returned the glass to the shelf and closed his sketch book.
"What in the world!"
"Pots and kettles, frying pans,
French toast, hot cakes, Chef's the man;
We'll wash our hair and comb our face,
Camp Tech—ump—sa, that's the place."
The crowd made a break for the door, and in a moment more they were inside, laughing and shouting. Five minutes later they might all have been found splashing around in the swimming-pool, making up for the lost swims of the past few days, their bodies brown as berries, and as healthy as free, camp-life in mountain air could make them. Mr. Allen shook Willis by the hand.
"I never had a better time in my life; and such a gang of royal good fellows! Willis, old man, I always want to be a boy if age takes such real pleasures away from man. I missed you, boy, every day, and needed you so often. How's the aunt, and how's the Department? Say, Willis, while I take a little swim, will you 'phone to all the Cabinet members and tell them it's Bruin Inn for supper on Saturday night?—a very important meeting! Meet here at five o'clock. And say, I want you to go along with us. I have decided to add an out-of-door committee to the Cabinet, and I want you to represent that phase of the work, will you?"
Camp was the favorite topic of conversation on Saturday night as the little group of older fellows walked up the canyon road. Mr. Allen was telling one group about some of the funny things fond mothers had sent to camp with their boys, while just behind another group were listening to an exciting tale of how the only night-shirt in camp, together with the Leader's razor-strop, were hung on the topmost branch of a great spike-topped pine that stood just in the middle of the camp.
So the talk ran on, from one thing to another. The stars twinkled in countless numbers above, giving just enough light so that they could see the mighty column of granite on either side, and to silhouette the gently-murmuring pines against the canyon wall. The air was chill and faintly scented by the bursting wild-cherry blossoms that grew in great profusion along the stream. Here and there, in a moist crevice, a glow-worm shed forth its greenish-yellow glow, to let you know it was night time and summer. Far away in the distance Phantom Falls was tumbling and splashing over a great pile of drift logs.
As the little company crossed the bridge and rounded a turn in the road, a campfire, built in a little sheltered nook back from the road, came into view. It cast long beams of light and grotesque shadows in every direction, while the odor of cherry blossoms changed to the aroma of good coffee.
"I hope Old Ben has as good a pot of coffee on the fire at the Inn," said one.
Presently "Old Night Cap" loomed up against the sky.
"This is as far as we could come a year or two ago," said Mr. Allen to Willis. "Before the railroad and the inn were built we used to think it was a long way even up here to the old mine."
"Did I ever tell you about the old Negro that owned this mine? Well, he came herein the early days and found a strange yellow outcropping here. He built himself a funny little shanty on the hillside, which he thatched with spruce boughs. Here he spent a good many years of his life, digging. His tunnel caved in soon after he left it, but he did find a little gold for his work. When his provisions gave out, he would take his old mule, which was his only companion, tramp into the city, sell his little bag of gold dust, and buy bacon, flour, and beans. After a little spree he would return to the mine, always sure that he would find the gold in larger quantities. Often I've stopped to talk with him as he brought a wheelbarrow load of dirt out of the tunnel to the edge of the little old dump.
"'Yep, I'se 'bout to fin' heaps an' heaps o' gol',' he'd say as