“I can’t.”
“Then why not stay with us and make your start in the morning?”
“What’s the difference? The weather is clear and cool, and the moon is near its full. I can reach Boothbay Harbor some time in the evening and stay there over night, and hire a launch to take me to Mouse. Or if I feel lazy, I can find accommodations at Bovil, which you know is a little village between that frightful road over which your supply team labors and Boothbay. Zip and I don’t mind a little thing like that.”
“Hello!” exclaimed Chester, “are we never to be rid of those pests?”
On the shore of the lake to their right, two men were seen standing with their attention fixed upon the canoe and its occupants. The distance was so slight that the three boys instantly recognized them as their old acquaintances,—Buzby Biggs and Saxy Hutt. It would have been thought that after their recent experience they would have lost no time in getting out of the neighborhood, but it will be remembered that when they leaped in a panic from the wagon of our old friend Jake, instead of running away from Gosling Lake, they headed toward it.
Zip was quick to identify the vagrants. Looking toward them he emitted a throaty growl.
“He hates tramps so, that I have to restrain him when we meet them.”
“And why do ye reshtrain him?” asked Mike from his place in the boat. “Why don’t ye gratify his appetite for such spalpeens, though I’m thinking he runs risk of being p’isoned?”
“So long as the tramps keep out of mischief I am willing to leave them alone.”
“But that is what they don’t do; they seem to have a spite against Doctor Spellman and his family.”