"You won't feel quite so lively after going hungry for a day or two," sneered Cameron. "You needn't mind about the letter, anyway," he added. "I have information that there's a boy coming in from Cordova who can read the code despatch and we're laying for him now."
"I don't want to seem to be irreligious," Sandy replied, "but I beg leave to state that if I owed the devil a debt of a thousand of the greatest liars on earth and he wouldn't take you and call the debt square, I'd cheat him out of it! Your fabrications are too cheap!"
"Don't get fresh now," advised Cameron. "If you do, I'll come in there and take it out of your hide!"
"Come on in!" urged Sandy. "I'd just like to get a good crack at your crust! I think I could fix you up in about five minutes so you'd want to lie in bed for about five months!"
"Aw, what's the good of stirring him up!" whispered George.
"I want to get him so mad that he'll say something that he wouldn't say if he wasn't angry!" replied Sandy. "What's your idea about this boy coming in, anyway? Do you believe it?"
"No!" was the reply. "There isn't any one to come in. And even if there was, there is no way in which he could be notified that he was coming! So you see, he's just lying for the fun of it!"
"Well, I'm sorry, boys," Cameron observed, "that you won't take advantage of the offer I'm making you. I brought a basket of provisions with me, and you might be having a square meal in five minutes if you'd only do what I ask you to do."
"I thought you didn't want the letter now!" scoffed Sandy.
"Oh, I'll get it all right whether you write it or not!" answered Cameron. "But if you have anything to say to me, you'd better say it now, because you won't see me again until tomorrow morning. I've just come from the cabin, and the boys there are about wild over your disappearance. I explained that I found your hats not far from a piece of torn and bloody turf, and that seemed to make them feel worse than ever."