The hotel proprietor, Graves by name, when he saw Garry’s familiarity with the telegraph, was convinced that everything was all right, and agreed to let him remain and see if a message would come in answer.
Garry fretted and fumed with impatience for nearly two hours, and then the ticker started, and he got the following message:
“Am in Bangor. Mother ’phoned me about message. Don’t understand your wire, but will start in morning and arrive Chester tomorrow evening. Meet me.”
With a sigh of relief Garry ticked his thanks to the other operator and prepared to go. He insisted on paying Graves something for his trouble, and after consulting a rate book that hung on a nail over the telegraph instrument, left the costs of the telegram on the table.
It was almost eleven o’clock when he came back to the tent. The hermit was asleep on a bough bed that he had fixed, and did not wake when Garry entered, as did Phil and Nate. He whispered to them to come outside, and they did.
“Now,” said Nate, “what’s all the shooin’ for?”
“Not so loud,” cautioned Garry. “Here’s the answer.”
Then he bent closer and whispered something. It made them utter surprised exclamations which they immediately muffled after a warning nudge from Garry.
“So, now,” concluded the Ranger leader, “all we can do is wait until Dad gets here tomorrow night.”
For Nate and the two boys the next day passed on leaden feet. They went about their mining, as usual, and were aided by the hermit, who displayed a remarkable knowledge of geology, and when told that they were mining for tourmalines, told them something of the early history of the stones,—astrekkers or “ashdrawers” as the Dutch called them, because of their magnetic property in picking up bits of straw or ashes. The boys learned for the first time how they had been discovered on Mount Apatite in Paris, Maine, by two boys who were out hunting.