“We took him in, you know, because Mr. Allen thought there was so much in him worth saving.  Someway, it hasn’t come out yet, and we’ve got to operate, do you understand?  We’ve got to scare Sleepy Smith out of his boots once or twice to see what’s in him.  Let’s do it to-night.  If we don’t, next time we bring a crowd up here on a night like this there will be three or four sitting around the fire doing nothing, and the next time six or seven, until at last a few of us will be waiting on the whole bunch, do you see?”

“Yes, I see,” replied Willis between chattering teeth; “but how on earth are you going to do it a night like this, with all this crowd?”

“Now, I’ll tell you just what I want you to do.  I’ll pull off the game and you be my accomplice.  We’ll take Sleepy out for a snow-bird hunt.  I never heard of one myself, but I’ll fix that all right.  We’ll scare the life out of that boy this night or bust.  All you have to do—­there comes some one.”

“Ham, Ham!” called Fat from the cabin; “come on to supper while it’s hot.”  Then the door closed again.  The two started toward the cabin, leaving old Peanuts braying hoarsely in the night.

“All you have to do,” continued Ham, “is to just swear to all I say.  You’ll catch on after I get started.  Be sure to watch for the chance.  I’ll tell Fat the scheme, and if I can get Sleepy out of the house for a minute, I’ll fix it up with the crowd.”  They were just about to enter the cabin when somewhere in the night came the weird hoot of an owl, and a pale, sickly moon peeped between the clouds.

“Well, fellows, how do you like that old stone fire-box, anyhow?” Ham questioned.  “I haven’t heard a fellow say a word about it yet.  That big black pot hanging on that crane makes me happy all over.  Why, we have Robinson Crusoe and that last polar expedition beaten a city block.  I never do see a pot hanging over the fire like that but I think of some of the delicious stews that Jim Parker made for us the Christmas vacation we spent with him out on his ranch in Middle Park.  Snowbird stew good?  O my!  It has turkey beaten a thousand directions.”

“Snowbird stew?” questioned Chuck.  “What in the world is it, Ham?  Bacon creamed, or some such stuff?”

“Bacon creamed, nothing,” replied Ham disgustedly.  “Snowbirds, just plain snowbirds.  When I was out feeding the mules just now, I heard a whole flock of snowbirds fly down the canyon.  That’s what made me think of the stew, I suppose.”

“Well, if they’re no bigger than the snowbirds I’ve seen,” remarked one boy, “you’d have to have a bushel of them for a meal.”

“Do you mean those saucy little fellows with the white breasts that come with the first snows?”

“Those are the fellows,” replied Ham, “and of course you need a lot of them.  But, then, they are so easy to catch if you just get into a flock of them.”

“How do you get them?” inquired Fat, who was always interested in anything new, so long as it had possibilities of something to eat in it.