“I wish you’d accept my offer before you came to that conclusion,” sighed the fat man. “But go ahead. The kids will be glad to get it. I’ll have to dine off chocolate caramels, I guess.”
Bart’s plan was soon in operation, to the delight of a number of boys and girls, no less than their distracted mothers. As for the chums, they had each eaten a sandwich before giving away their lunch, and they thought they could stand it until they got to Cannistota. They were given an informal vote of thanks by the grateful parents.
Then ensued tedious waiting until the relief engine came. There were many murmurs, and much fault-finding, but there was no help for it. The candy boy sold out his stock of sweet stuff in record time, even down to the chewing gum. At length a welcome whistle was heard, and soon the train was under way again.
“Well,” remarked Ned, as he settled back in his seat, “we will enjoy our supper, anyhow.”
“Yes,” remarked Bart. “I don’t altogether believe in Jed’s good luck signs. I’d just as soon he would have omitted some of ’em.”
“Oh, well, we’ll be in camp to-morrow,” announced Frank. “Then we can eat whenever we feel like it.”
The chums were late in arriving in Cannistota, and they went at once to a hotel. They had arranged to do this anyhow, as they knew there would not be time to put up tents the same day that they started off on their camping trip. After a substantial meal, to make up for their light dinner, they inquired at the express office, and learned that their camp stuff had arrived safely. They arranged for a teamster to take it to the woods where they had decided to pitch their tents, and early the next morning they were under way.
“It’s a dandy day,” observed Fenn, as he looked at the cloudless sky overhead, and saw the piles of snow on every side.
“A little too warm,” was Bart’s opinion. “Still, it may not be thawing so much in the woods. I’m anxious to get a shot at something. We can’t hunt deer, you know, when there’s tracking snow, but I hear there are bears where we are going.”
“A feller I know killed a big one last week, not a great ways from where you’re going,” observed the teamster.