“From what we had heard,” replied the other, “we supposed we should find some sort of a preparatory camping-ground in the woods, from which we could go out and have a camp of our own.”
“That’s just what you have found,” said Sadler. “In this house you prepare to camp, if you need preparation. If any man, woman, or child comes here and wants to go out to camp, and I see that they are sickly or weak or in any way not fit to live in the woods, I don’t let them go one step until they are fit for it. The air and the food and the water they get here will make them fit, if anything will do it, and if these three things don’t set them up they simply have to go back where they came from. They can’t go into camp from this house. But if they fancy this hotel—and there isn’t any reason why anybody shouldn’t fancy it—they can stay here as long as they like, and I’ll take care of them. Now, sir, if you want to go into camp, the first thing for you to do is to bring your family here and let me take a look at them. I’ve seen them, of course, but I haven’t made up my mind yet whether they are the right sort for camp life. As for you, I think you will do. There isn’t much of you, but you look tough.”
Mr. Archibald laughed. “That’s good rough talk,” he said, “and smacks more of camp life than anything I have noticed here. I will go and bring my wife and Miss Dearborn.”
“There is another reason why I want to see them,” said the bluff Peter. “As you are bent on camping, you’ll like to choose a camp, and when anything of that kind is on hand I want to talk to the whole party. I don’t care to settle the business with one of them, and then have him come back and say that what has been agreed upon don’t suit the others. I want a full meeting or no session.”
When Mr. Archibald returned with his wife and Margery, he found Peter Sadler had rolled his chair up to a large circular table at the back of the hall, on which was spread a map of the forest. He greeted the ladies in a loud voice and with a cheery smile.
“And so you want to go camping, do you?” said he. “Sit down and let us talk it over. I think the young lady is all right. She looks spry enough, and I expect she could eat pine-cones like a squirrel if she was hungry and had nothing else. As for you, madam, you don’t appear as if anything in particular was the matter with you, and I should think you could stand a Number Three camp well enough, and be all the better for a week or two of it.”
“What is a Number Three camp?” asked Margery, before the astonished Mrs. Archibald could speak.
“Well,” said Sadler, “it is a camp with a good deal of comfort in it. Our Number One camps are pretty rough. They are for hunters and scientific people. We give them game enough in season, and some bare places where they can make fires and stretch a bit of canvas. That is all they want, to have a truly good time. That is the best camp of all, I think. Number Two camps are generally for fishermen. They always want a chance for pretty good living when they are out in the woods. They stay in camp in the evenings, and like to sit around and have a good time. Number Threes are the best camps we put families into, so you see, madam, I’m rating you pretty high. There’s always a log-cabin in these camps, with cots and straw mattresses and plenty of traps for cooking. And, more than that, there is a chance for people who don’t tramp or fish to do things, such as walking or boating, according to circumstances. There’s one of our camps has a croquet-ground.”
“Oh, we don’t want that!” cried Margery, “it would simply ruin every illusion that is left to me.”
“Glad to hear that,” said Peter. “If you want to play croquet, stay at the hotel; that’s what I say. Now, then, here are the camps, and there’s plenty of them to choose from. You’ve come in a good time, for the season isn’t fairly begun yet. Next month every camp will be full, with the hotel crowded with people waiting for their turns.”