"After we've had supper," Thad went on warmly, "Bob means to go to keep his appointment with his little cousin, who expects to slip out of the house, and meet him where he wrote her he would be at a certain hour. There's the queerest valley you ever saw just ahead of us. Across it you can see the lights of Reuben Sparks' house, and several others that lie there in a bunch, a sort of hamlet, because it's hardly a village. And Bob says that Reuben really owns about the whole place. He can get over there in an hour or so, because he knows the ground so well. And while he's gone, we can take it easy here, making up our beds for the night; if so be there are any bushes to be cut, worth sleeping on."
"Hey, would you see how fine a fire-tender that Giraffe is; it's gone clean out, that's what?" cried Step Hen, just then.
"Well, would you blame him, when he was listening to such an interesting story as the one I had to tell?" asked Thad. "Get busy, Number Six, and have a blaze going in quick time."
"Ay, ay, sir," sang out Giraffe, who had wisely laid aside a surplus supply of fine stuff when making the fire, which now came in very handy.
And when the coffee was finally done, and they gathered around, sitting on rocks, logs, or even cross-legged, tailor-fashion, on the ground, the eight scouts made a very fine picture in their uniforms.
Apparently their appetites had been sharpened by that afternoon jaunt, judging from the way they pitched in. And perhaps, after all, Reuben Sparks had been a wise as well as prudent man when he failed to invite this squad of lads to stop over with him; for they would have made a sad inroad on the contents of his larder; and food costs money.
"Where's Bob?" demanded Bumpus, suddenly, after they had been about half an hour trying to lighten their supplies, and with wonderfully good success. "He was sitting over yonder only three minutes ago; and now he's gone. Reckon that bad spirit of yours is sneakin' around again, Step Hen, and must a took Bob by mistake; though I pity his eyes if he'd ever think so good lookin' a feller as Bob could be you!"
"Bob's gone to keep his appointment," remarked Thad, quietly.
And the boys said nothing more about it, knowing that the Southern lad laid considerable store upon this meeting with his little cousin Bertha; whom he expected to coax in to helping him try and see whether sly old Reuben Sparks might not have forgotten to destroy all evidence of fraud, in connection with his dealings with her father, the uncle of Bob.
So the conversation drifted to other topics; and soon they were laughing over some of the queer happenings in the past history of the Silver Fox Patrol.