“Remember this doesn’t mean that we’ve got to give the scheme up altogether,” Dick told a group around him after the meeting had been hastily adjourned. “There are more places than Lake Marley that can be used for camping, though we’d like it a heap better if we could be near the water. Let every fellow hustle, and try to get track of another good site, so as to report to-morrow night when we have our regular meeting here.”
Even Nat looked troubled, for he, too, had counted on having the time of his life, if once the boys of the junior organization found themselves in camp. Nat was always looking for new opportunities to play some of his jokes, and he believed he would find many splendid chances under the novel surroundings of camp life.
Asa Gardner walked part way home with Dick on this night, and Leslie soon caught up with them. Asa was a pale lad who needed outdoor exercise very much. He had been greatly depressed by the fact of their failure to obtain permission to camp on the shore of Lake Marley.
“Oh! you don’t know how much I’ve been counting on getting a week or two out in the open air,” he confided to Dick, as the three of them walked along. “And besides, you promised to show me a whole lot of things about living in the woods that I’d just love to hear about, Dick. My mother told me I ought to stay outdoors all I could, for you know I once had an older brother who died from lung trouble.”
“Well, don’t give it up yet, Asa,” Dick told him. “Some of us are not going to throw up the sponge so easy as all that. Wait and see what can be done. I’m glad that you seem to be enjoying the club. Mr. Holwell takes a lot of interest in you, I notice. He told me only yesterday that he expected to see the day when you’d be up among the leaders, after you got well started.”
“Mr. Holwell is the best man living,” said Asa, warmly. “When he’s talking to me I just seem to feel that I could do anything in the world to please him. He makes you see things the way he does. If I ever do amount to a row of beans it’ll be through Mr. Holwell, and not because it was in me.”
“You’re wrong there, Asa,” said Dick, kindly. “It’s got to be in you first of all, but he knows just how to draw it out. And any fellow who does things the way Mr. Holwell advises is bound to climb the ladder, as sure as he lives.”
Asa left the others soon afterward, as his home lay in a different direction.
“I don’t know just what to make of that chap,” said Leslie, as he and Dick continued on their way. “He used to be the sneakiest fellow going, and was always getting things in his pockets that belonged to others. Just couldn’t help it, I’ve heard people say, for he was like one of his uncles who used to be a shady financier down around Wall Street, New York City, and always grabbing things.”
Dick laughed a little at the queer conceit. Leslie was always saying odd things calculated to make others smile, it seemed.