“We’ve met him!” grunted Browning.
“About challenges. What is their character?” questioned Merriwell.
“The arrangements were for an archery shoot, day after to-morrow, with a swimming match on the lake the next day, and that to be followed by a mountain-climbing contest.”
Colson looked hopefully at Merriwell and his companions.
“You must not say ‘no’ to our invitation,” he insisted. “You’ll find it much pleasanter in our cottages down by the lake than in this hotel, and we need you! We want you to join our club. It is perfectly legitimate, for we’re allowed to recruit from anywhere. As I said, a number of the Blue Mountain boys—more than half of them, I think—do not have their homes in Glendale.”
“What do you say, fellows?” questioned Merriwell, turning toward his companions.
“Av it’s thim chumps upon the hill!” exclaimed Barney Mulloy.
Merriwell nodded.
“I think I’d like that, by thutter!” declared Ephraim Gallup.
“You pets my poots, dot voult pe a bicnic!” asserted Hans Dunnerwust, the jolly-looking Dutch boy.