“Yes, he bought on my advice,” answered Gillis.
“Well, he’s going to run a railroad in and build sawmills, and saw the logs right on the spot instead of shipping them to the Coast.”
“Good!” said Gillis heartily. “There’s a wonderful stand of timber in that valley.”
“But here’s the best part of it,” Douglas went on eagerly; “Dad’s going to send you in to cruise the timber around Summit Lake, and I’m to go with you. It’s a wonderful country. I was up there last summer.” He turned to Donald. “Will you go with us?”
“I’ll be glad to,” assented Donald.
“Good!” cried Douglas. “It will be fine camping with you and Jack.”
Little Andy sat patiently listening to this lively conversation, in which he had been completely ignored. He could contain himself no longer.
“I s’y,” he blurted, “am I such a blinkin’ dwarf that you’ve forgotten that I’m in this ’ere crowd? Isn’t me ’ead above the tyble? Where the ’ell do I get off on this ’ere bloomin’ picnic, I asks you?”
One look into the Australian’s seriously comic face with its heavy blond eyebrows wagging up and down set Douglas into paroxysms of laughter. “Andy,” he declared, “I’m going to take you along, even if we have to mark you ‘excess baggage.’ Can you cook?”
“Can I cook?” repeated Andy. “ ’E asks me can I cook! That’s me first name; that’s me profession. I’ve cooked on sailing ships, steamboats, in camps, in the Army, an’ I did thirty days in Sydney jail, and blime me if they didn’t make me ’ead cook. I was so good they wanted me to sty.”