David laughed. “What are you doing up here? I supposed you were snug in the office directing affairs in the absence of your father.”
“Oh, the pater’s back again. I guess the speed-limit in Baden Baden was too slow for him. He’s building the new road, you know, N. M. & Q. Your Uncle Wallie is on the preliminary survey. Devil of a job, too.”
“Oh, yes. I heard about it. It’s going to be a big thing.”
“Yes,” said Bascomb, peering with short-sighted eyes into the dim glass as he adjusted his tie, “it may be a big thing if I”—striking an attitude and thumping his chest—“don’t break my neck or die of starvation. Camp cooking, Davy—whew! Say, Davy, I’m the Christopher Columbus of this expedition, I am, and I’ll get just about as much thanks for my stake-driving and exploring as he did.”
Bascomb kicked an open suit-case out of his way and a fresh, crackling blue-print sprang open on the floor.
“That’s it. Here we are,” he said, spreading the blue-print on the bed, “straight north from Tramworth, along the river. Then we cross here at Lost Farm, as they call it. Say, there’s a canny old crab lives up there that holds the shell-back record for grouch. Last spring, when we were working up that way and I took a hand at driving stakes, just to ease my conscience, you know, along comes that old whiskered Cyclops with a big Winchester on his shoulder. I smelled trouble plainer than hot asphalt.
“‘Campin’?’ he asked.
“‘No,’ I said. ‘Just making a few dents in the ground. A kind of air-line sketch of the new road—N. M. & Q.’
“‘Uhuh!’ he grunted. ‘Suppose the new rud ’s a-comin’ plumb through here, ain’t it?’
“‘Right-o,’ said I.