“Heah’s theh post office, suh!” remarked Tom Smith, as he pointed toward a big half-rotten stump of a tree that must have been broken off short in some storm of years gone by.
“What, that poor old thing?” ejaculated Bumpus, just as though visions of a post office conjured up in his mind all sorts of elaborate buildings, with crowds of country people gathering around as the mail was being sorted.
“Thet heah is theh place, as sure as anything,” asserted the other; “an’ jest hole on long enuff tuh ’low me tuh slip yuh lettah in theh same, Thad.”
As he said this Tom Smith paddled his canoe alongside the bank, jumped out, and strode over to the remnant of a once proud sentinel oak.
He seemed to know what he was about; perhaps in times gone by he may himself have communicated with old Ricky through means of this letter box. At any rate the boys saw him reach up to a break in the surface of the stump, and put his hand inside. When he drew it out he no longer held the little note that the scout-master had written, and given into his charge.
Then Tom Smith once more embarked, and joined them in his canoe.
“That’s what I call a slick way to send letters,” Davy remarked.
“Saves a heap of postage, for a fact,” Bob White chuckled; “but then I’ve seen the same done more than a few times befo’, suh, so it’s nothing new to me.”
“Say, do you really and truly think old Ricky might be awatching us right now, and see you put something in his post office?” Bumpus questioned.
“Course I don’t jest know fo’ sure,” replied the swamp hunter; “but I’m summat ’quainted with his ways, an’ I reckons as how it’s likely he be.”