And after the night had closed in around them, what joy to sit around
with the dancing and crackling fire, while they brought forward
recollections of other occasions when they partook of camp fare, and
looked forward to a period of keenest enjoyment.

Even Bandy-legs seemed for the time being to have quite overcome his
feeling of timidity and uneasiness, so that he laughed with the rest,
and appeared as joyous as anybody, sitting there and watching the
curling flames eat deep into the dry wood that had been tossed to them,
and feeling so restful after the meal.

Steve was filled with complete happiness. Somehow or other he seemed to
be more set than any of his chums upon proving to Herb and his comrades,
that they had been a lot of chumps who were almost afraid of their own
shadows. He had never been in a gayer mood, Max thought.

Presently all sorts of sounds arose around them, among which were the
cries of night birds like the whip-poor-will; owls started to hoot back
somewhere on the island; giant frogs boomed forth their calls for "more
rum, more rum!" and altogether there was soon quite a noisy chorus under
full blast.

But as all these sounds were familiar to even Bandy-legs, though it was
not often they heard them in concert, no one remarked that he objected
to them.

Max was just in the act of declaring that if there was one dish of which
he was particularly fond it was frogs' legs, and that he meant to start
on a hunt for some of those blustering fellows in the morning, when a