“Stand up!” said Sam promptly. “We’ll brush the snow off each other. Then we’ll go back to the camp. You’d better slip in the way you slipped out. I’ll go in at the front door, and tell the fellows you’re working here, and I’ve had a talk with you. Then you’ll happen along naturally. The crowd will be decent.” Orkney made a grimace. “S’pose I’ll have to see ’em--might as well have it over. But see here, Parker! Mind you, I haven’t promised to go back to Plainville.” “But you’ll think it over?” “Well,” said Orkney reluctantly, “I’ll agree to that. Yes; I’ll stay a day or two, anyway, and think it over.” CHAPTER XXIII LON GATES ENTERTAINS What easily might have been an embarrassing situation was dealt with capably by the Safety First Club. Hardly had the jovial Mr. Kane welcomed the belated Sam and demanded how in the world he had happened to stray from the rest of the party and what he had been doing to amuse himself out in the cold; and hardly had Sam explained as nonchalantly as might be that he had chanced to meet a schoolmate, who was serving as cookee to the camp, and had paused for a chat with him, when the door in the partition shutting off the cook’s domain opened, and Orkney appeared. There was brief, but tense, silence as Tom advanced toward the group. Then Step, who chanced to be nearest, spoke. “H’lo, Orkney!” said he brusquely but not harshly. “Howdy, Step!” responded Tom, quite in the same manner. “Oh, up here for a while, eh?” This was Poke’s contribution. The others nodded, a bit stiffly, maybe; and the Shark regarded the newcomer solemnly through his glasses. Nowhere was there sign of hostility, even if warmer welcome were lacking. There was not a boy there but guessed shrewdly at what had taken place; but not for love or money would one of them have betrayed his knowledge by speech or look. At times the methods of youngsters in their teens curiously resemble those of Indians--at least, to the extent of jealous hiding of emotion. Both Tom and Sam bore a mark or two of their encounter, but for the present these were things to be carefully ignored. Mr. Kane, as he himself would have said, “sensed” something queer; but though he glanced quickly and inquiringly from face to face, he could make nothing of the manner of his guests. And then Orkney going about his duties and the boys resuming their talk, he gave up the problem, and turned to Lon, from whom he demanded the latest news of the outside world.