“Are you not going to have some bacon?” asked Nell, with dismay in her tone.
“No; the bread is quite enough; and I can see you are impatient to be on the move again,” he said. When the tea was to his liking, he swallowed it in great gulps and declared himself ready to start.
“I am so sorry to take you all that way,” murmured Nell, as Mr. Bronson prepared for his start by huddling his cooking utensils into a bag which he slung across his back; then, picking up another bundle and a big umbrella which stood at the foot of a tree close by, declared himself ready to start.
“Are you not coming back to this camp?” she asked in surprise, seeing that he had taken all his belongings and was preparing to kick the fire to pieces.
“No; any two trees suffice to sling my hammock in; then I roll a blanket round me, hoist my umbrella, and sleep peacefully until morning,” he said, laughing at the concern on her face.
“What a dreadful life!” she exclaimed, with consternation in her tone.
“It is just beautiful,” he answered, with enthusiasm. “I go into the wilds for my vacation every year; but I have not ventured on a horse since I had to shoot that poor beast in the swamp two years ago. Then last year and this year I have been looking for you.”
“What do you mean?” asked Nell, in great surprise, thinking she could not possibly have heard aright, since she knew of no reason why Mr. Bronson should want to seek her out.
“Just precisely what I said,” he replied, laughing at her wonderment. “Common gratitude for what you had done for me took me to Blue Bird Ridge last year, only to find that the Lone House had other tenants who could not or would not tell me anything about you. Then I travelled on to Button End and interviewed Joe Lipton; but he knew nothing, and his wife, who might have helped me, was away visiting and could not be got at, so I had to give it up because the end of my vacation was in sight. I had left that part to the last, you see.”
“Yes, I know,” said Nell, thinking of that day in last summer when she had seen Mr. Bronson standing talking to a man at the depot, and Joey Trip had said that it was Dick Brunsen, only it must have been the other man whom Joey meant.