“We expect to reach Gosling Lake in time to get into our quarters on Wednesday and shall look for you to be there to help us with our work.”
“And this is Wednesday morning!” repeated Mike in dismay; “what have the poor byes done widout me to give them suggistions?”
“They have done a good deal better than had ye been wid them,” replied his mother; “being ye have delayed so long, it’s best ye bide at home.”
With a start Mike looked at her, but the twinkle in her blue eyes showed from which parent the son inherited most of his waggishness.
“I must be off,” said he, springing to his feet. He would have been out of the house the next minute had not his father checked him.
“Show a little sinse even if ye niver had any; ate a big maal, which ye can do at any time no matter if it be in the middle of the night; put some money and yer knife, watch and compass in yer pocket. Take that buckthorn shillalah, with which I have cracked many a hid at Donnybrook; then hie ye to Boothbay Harbor and hire some one to take ye to the right spot up the Sheepscott and then thramp through the woods, as ye have been towld to do to Gosling Lake, comporting yersilf like a gintleman, and not make yer father and mither ashamed of ye as ye have done many a time.”
This counsel was so wise that the impulsive youth could not object. Despite the completeness of his uniform and equipments more than one thing was lacking. He needed toilet articles, a change of underclothing, needles, thread and a number of trifling conveniences, which a thoughtful mother never forgets.
Thus it came about that early in the afternoon Mike walked to Southport and there boarded the little steamer Norman II, and soon thereafter landed at Boothbay Harbor, full of eager expectancy, and little dreaming of the remarkable experience that awaited him.
CHAPTER II—Lost In the Woods
At Boothbay Harbor, Mike Murphy hired Sherb Doloff to take him in his small motor boat Sunshine to Hailstone Point. It was the season when the days are long, and the sun was only a little past meridian as the small boat chug-chugged up beside the projecting finger of land and the eager Mike leaped ashore.