"Sure. What do ye reckon on doin' to-night?"
"Make a new camp and watch it. Where was that bear of yours while all
that uproar was in progress?" demanded Tom.
"Same place the Lieutenant's pup was at--sleepin'!" returned Joe dryly.
Tom turned away laughing. He and Hippy rustled boughs for new lean-tos,
chopped wood for the night campfire, and began making a new camp a few
rods from the one that had been destroyed by the falling tree and the
forest fire. The girls volunteered to assist in the work, but Hippy
declared that they looked as if they needed sleep more than work.
The work on the lean-tos had not been finished when the Overlanders were
summoned to supper. There was little conversation until they had dulled
the sharp edges of their appetites; then their drooping spirits revived
and they began bantering each other.
Henry had come down to be on hand when the food was distributed and got
many morsels during the meal.
The bear suddenly bristled, swayed his head from side to side, and
began to growl. At almost the same instant Hippy Wingate's bull pup was
galvanized into life. He began to utter deep growls and resentful
coughs.
"Some varmint hangin' around, I reckon," nodded the forest woman in
answer to a look of inquiry from Grace. "Be still, Henerey!"
"I hear something coming," declared Tom.
Hippy fastened a hand on Hindenburg's collar, and Joe threatened the
bear with a club until he slunk away and disappeared, then, to their
amazement, Peg Tatem stamped into camp, followed by a group of
lumberjacks.
The Overland Riders gazed questioningly at his scowling face. Tom Gray
was the only member of the outfit who knew him, but they instantly
recognized the foreman of Section Forty-three, from the descriptions of
him given by Tom and Joe Shafto, who now stood glaring angrily at him
through her big horn glasses.
Tom greeted the newcomer cordially.
"Won't you sit down and have a snack with us?" he asked.
"Don't want nothin' t' eat with the likes of ye, thankee," growled Peg.
"Oh, that's all right, old top," observed Hippy cheerfully. "We aren't
particularly eager to have a rough-neck sit down to mess with us."
"Hold yer tongue, ye cheap dude!" snarled Peg, shaking the heavy stick,
that he carried as a cane, at Lieutenant Wingate.
"Don't get rough," grinned Hippy. "What do you want here anyway?"
The lumberjacks, who had accompanied the foreman, halted a few paces to
the rear of their superior, and neither their appearance nor their
expressions were reassuring.
"What is it you wish?" demanded Tom.
"What ye got to say about this?" snorted Peg, taking in the burned area
with a sweep of his stick.
"As a forester, I am very sorry that this has happened, though it was
through no fault of ours," answered Tom.
"Ye lie!" exploded the foreman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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