“You lobsters! How did you get here?” cried Hal dashing forward.
“Think nobody can run a car but yourself, don’t you?” returned Chet.
“Car? What car?”
Chet pointed to a small runabout hidden from sight behind a clump of bushes, then he broke into derisive shouts of laughter at sight of Hal’s expression of astonishment. “We got the drop on you that time,” he cried. “This pays you up for that last trick you played on Pete and me.”
“All right; it is the kind of paying up I like,” returned Hal good-naturedly. “Come on, boys, where are the axes? Let’s get to work.”
“Where do we start?” asked Jimmy, shouldering his axe.
“I don’t suppose it makes much difference,” decided Hal. “Each fellow can pick out his own tree. Mr. Pattison said we could take whatever we wanted, didn’t he, Jo?”
“He did indeed.”
“He’s what I call a true sport,” said Chet. “He plays the game up to the limit. I don’t believe he has a mean bone in his body.” He gave a first stroke on the trunk of a small cedar, and soon the axes were busy.
The girls, after petting Chico and having a little chat with Pablo, went in search of the ground-pine.