“If there’s a thief loose up there why haven’t they caught him before now?” another demanded.
“P’r’aps that job is being held off for the Y. M. C. A. boys to tackle,” suggested a third with a grin that told how gladly he would enter into the game if it should really turn out that way.
“It strikes me as a rather poor sort of place for respectable boys to camp in, if there’s such a low character loose in the vicinity. I really will have to think it over before deciding to accompany the rest of you.”
That came from Humbert Loft, a nephew of the librarian whose constant nagging of the town boys, in his desire to have them select only standard works suited to much older heads, rather than the juvenile books they yearned to read, had been the cause of much bad feeling, and had resulted in the boys starting a library of their own.
The peculiar ways of Humbert were well known to the others, so that his present lofty remark did not cause much surprise. Most of the boys indeed could not bear his superior airs, and thus far his associations had not been of a character to give him much joy.
Dick alone stood by him whenever the others started to tease the librarian’s nephew, who had imbibed the notions of Mr. Loft himself. Dick could not agree with the ideas which Humbert advanced, but still he believed he could catch traces of the more natural boy underneath this veneering. Dick hoped that some time or other Humbert might throw off his sham of superior polish and come out as Nature intended boys to be, perhaps rough and careless, but good-hearted, and meaning well even when disposed to be full of boyish pranks.
Asa Gardner in particular heard the remarks made by Mr. Nocker with great joy. As he had told Dick, he often dreamed of enjoying the pleasure of camping out, of which he had read many times; and now that it began to look as though a chance had come for him to experience the sensation he felt very happy.
“The outdoor life is the thing for me,” he remarked to Elmer Jones after the meeting had been adjourned by the temporary chairman.
“Well, for that matter I’m just as crazy about such things as any fellow could be and keep out of the asylum,” remarked Elmer. “I’ve had a few chances to camp out and have managed to pick up some of the tricks of the trade. But there’s a heap I don’t know yet, and I mean to learn it all as fast as I can.”
“But besides the fun of the thing,” continued Asa, seriously, “it’s bound to do me lots of good, you know. My mother told me to keep out-of-doors all I could, because—well, my lungs are a little weak, I guess. You know my brother was taken off that way, and it kind of scares me sometimes when I have a cough.”