Three tow-headed, wild-eyed little Trotters, who had been playing at teeter with a plank laid over a carpenter's "horse" for a seesaw, ranged themselves all in a row, and gaped their fill at the strange spectacle of a wagonload of boys all dressed pretty much alike.
"Are you Mr. Trotter?" asked Elmer, as he jumped down, and the other came forward toward him.
"That's my name, son; what fetches the hull lot of you up this way? Ameanin' to camp on the lake-shore, it might be? I've heard about the scouts daown at Hickory Ridge; Johnny yonder's been apinin' to jine 'em this long time back, but, of course, it ain't to be thunk of, with him so far away."
"Yes, we are the members of the Wolf Patrol, Mr. Trotter," said Elmer, who wanted to make a good friend of the farmer in the start. "I'm Elmer Chenowith; perhaps you know my father, or some of the other fellows' parents."
He thereupon introduced each one of the boys by name, and even mentioned the fact that the father of this one or that occupied a prominent place in the business or professional world of Hickory Ridge town.
"We haven't exactly come up here to camp out this trip, Mr. Trotter," continued the patrol leader, after bowing to the farmer's wife who had first darted indoors to see that her supper was not burning, and then hurried to join them.
Elmer knew that the truth might just as well come out in the beginning as later. On this account he did not intend to hold anything back, but be perfectly frank with the owner of the lake farm.
"What might be your object then, son?" asked the tiller of the soil, possibly feeling a bit of natural curiosity in the matter.
"Ask him first of all, won't you Elmer," pleaded Lil Artha, as though he feared lest this important matter be lost sight of in the confusion of affairs; "whether he c'n spare us some eggs, and a few broilers to take into the old swamp with us?"
"I guess ma c'n let you have what you want along them lines," replied Mr. Trotter, "though seems like somebody's been amakin' free with her layin' hens lately. They keep disappearin' right along. Sometimes I think it's a mink that's gettin' 'em, but they ain't any signs of sech a critter around; 'cause you know a mink'll kill as many as a dozen fowls in one night, and jest suck their blood."