He said he would build a cabin down by the lakeside and there he and Blumpo could live like ordinary people.
“I have several thousand dollars saved up,” he said, “so we will not want for anything. I will buy a boat, and Blumpo can make a living by letting her out to pleasure parties.”
“Dat will suit me exactly,” cried Blumpo.
“But you must also go to school in the winter,” went on Daniel Brown. “And you must drop that dialect, and not say dat for that.”
“Golly! but won’t I be eddicate!” murmured Blumpo. “Say, Pop maybe I kin hab—I mean have—a new suit, eh?”
“Two of them, Abraham,” said the hermit; and then all hands laughed.
It was well for the boys that they were housed in the hermit’s dwelling, for that night a terrible thunder storm came up. The wind howled and shrieked around the mountain top, and continued until dawn.
“If we had been on the plateau we would have been blown off into the lake,” said Harry, at breakfast.
By nine o’clock it cleared off and at twelve the mountain was as dry as ever. They packed up, and, accompanied by the hermit, set off, for the old camp.
Daniel Brown knew every inch of the mountain and under his guidance they reached the bottom much quicker than they would otherwise have done.