Jim Mercer halted at the counter. “Was there some complaint about the Mercer brothers, Rowen?” he asked quietly.
“I just said that you two were the colonel’s pets,” replied the clerk. “Just because you two once helped the colonel out of a mess he bows down before you.”
“With all due respect to the colonel,” drawled Don Mercer, “he is a little too fat to bow down! Calm down, Dick.”
“Aw, you guys give me a pain!” roared the clerk.
Terry impishly picked up the telephone, carefully holding down the hook. “Hello, is this the nurse?” he spoke into the transmitter. “If you have time I wish you’d stop in at the commissary department. Mr. Rowen has a very bad pain. I beg your pardon? Oh, it seems to be a Mackson-Mercer pain, if you know what that is! It seems to be——”
Laughing, Jim Mercer caught him by the arm. “Come on, get out of here, you!” he admonished his friend. “Come on up to the room.”
The three boys were devoted pals, having been friends from childhood. They had been in many scrapes and adventures together, sharing their fun and dangers on land and sea. In the first volume of this series, The Mercer Boys’ Cruise in the Lassie, they had gone on a long cruise, and from there they had come to Woodcrest, their fun and adventure at that time being related in The Mercer Boys at Woodcrest. On their following summer vacation they had encountered some strange events in The Mercer Boys on a Treasure Hunt and later on had worked together on a school mystery, details of which will be found in The Mercer Boys’ Mystery Case. Early in the spring of that same year the boys had faced a man’s task on the Massachusetts coast, all of which will be found in the fifth volume, The Mercer Boys with the Coast Guard. Now, after a few months of uneventful school life, they were preparing for their first encampment.
Once in their own room the three boys hung up the new uniforms that they would wear the next day. There were no lessons and they had nothing to do except wait until morning, when they would set off for camp. All of the boys looked forward eagerly to it.
“I hear that we are going to a new camping ground this year,” Jim said, as he sat on the edge of his bed. “Rustling Ridge, they call it.”
“Yes,” nodded Don. “Other years they have held the encampment at Perryville, but the colonel hunted up new grounds this time. I heard that there had been quite a bit of building going on near the old camp and the colonel wants to get as far away from civilization as he can.”