“What do you mean?” asked Frank.
“Mean, is it, you ask? Why, I mean that I fancy some other hands than Martin’s will pour the tea for us to-night.”
“Do stop talking riddles, Sam,” said Alec, “and tell us what your palaver is all about.”
“Well,” replied the incorrigible tease, “I fancy that, if you young gentlemen are getting sick of having pledged yourselves to eternal loyalty, or, in other words, plighted your troths either to others, as the book says, you will both have a chance to tell the fair damsels to their faces ere the sun goes down.”
“Sam!” they both shouted, “what do you mean?”
This explosion on their part caused Mr Ross to turn from his consultation with Big Tom. In response rather to his looks than anything he uttered Sam said:
“I have been trying to get it into the thick heads of these two boys that there is an agreeable conspiracy on foot for their mutual consolation and edification, but for the life of me I believe they are as much in the dark as when I began.”
“Chist!” (“Look!”) cried Big Tom. “Akota wigwam!” (“There is the tent!”)
These words of Big Tom caused everything else to be forgotten, and so even Mr Ross, who was vastly amused that Sam had been so observant, did not make any reply to the lad’s remarks.
Rapidly they sped along, and now soon to all was visible a large tent and a number of persons on the distant sandy beach. Sam keenly watched his comrades, and saw their cheeks flush and their eyes get moist as they caught the sight of white handkerchiefs waving from the hands of those to whom they had become so deeply attached.