“Sure!” exclaimed Rick, at whom the question seemed to be directed.
“We got plenty of them, and some bread and butter,” went on the cook. “Might as well make a meal when you have the chance. I can give you bacon, too.”
“Say,” laughed Mr. Campbell, “this is a regular hotel.”
“Hardly that,” said Joe Martin, as the others called him, “but such as ’tis you’re welcome to.”
Seldom had a meal tasted better, for all three were very hungry in spite of the sandwiches and chocolate they had partaken of not long before.
And then as the rain kept up its pelting on the roof of the lonely shack, the boys sat and were permeated by the warmth of the blazing fire while Ruddy sighed in contentment. If Mr. Campbell was worried about the chance of keeping on next day, over rain-torn roads, he said nothing about it.
The shack was larger than it first appeared. There was the main room, where the fire blazed, a small kitchen and two other rooms, fitted with three bunks in each one. Mr. Campbell and the boys were given one bunk room for themselves, and the other was used by the lumbermen as they called themselves.
“Better turn in, boys,” suggested Mr. Campbell, as he noticed Rick and Chot nodding before the sleep-compelling blaze.
“I guess I will,” said Rick, and soon he and his chum, with Ruddy stretched out in a corner, were soundly slumbering. Mr. Campbell “turned in” a little later.
Rick’s last thoughts, as he dozed off in the fairly comfortable bunk, were of his Uncle Tod. He wondered why his mother’s relative had departed so suddenly after the receipt of the mysterious message. Also Rick wondered why Uncle Tod wanted him, another boy and Ruddy to come out west.