“There, there,” chuckled Mr. Dacre, “you’d never do for diplomats—too honest,” he murmured, half to himself; “but, as Jasper would say—being as how you have given yourselves away, I have something to propose to you.”
“Hurray!” shouted Jack, capering about, “a trip? I’ll bet the hole out of a doughnut it’s a trip!”
“And you would win that bet,” cried Mr. Dacre, drawing out the letter from his pocket. “In the mail to-day there came a letter from a man from whom I have not heard for some time—a good many years, in fact.”
A cloud passed over Mr. Dacre’s face. They could see that for a moment he was back in the old painful past. But it passed as rapidly as a shadow on the surface of the rippling lake.
“My friend has a ranch in Washington State,” he went on, while the boys, with parted lips and sparkling eyes, fairly drank in his words. “It appears that he read in the papers about our adventures in the tropics. This letter is the result. He informs me that if I am anxious to make an investment with a part of the treasure of the lost galleon, that no better opportunity offers than the timber and fruit country of Washington. He says that he imagines that I must be anxious for rest anyhow, and, to make a long story short, he extends to me and to my two celebrated nephews”—the boys blushed—“a hearty invitation to visit him, renew old friendship, and take a look at the country. What do you say, boys—shall we go?”
Tom drew a long breath.
“Say, ever since I read that book on the Great Northwest of our country I’ve longed to get out there. Jack and I have talked it over many a time.”
Here Jack nodded vigorously.
“Will we go, uncle? Well,” Tom paused as he cast about for a fitting phrase, “well,” he burst out, “if we don’t, your Bungalow Boys will be Grumble-oh! boys.”
“Then I will write him this afternoon that we will come,” said Mr. Dacre soberly, though it was easy to see that he was almost as pleased as the lads at their decision. As for the boys, they joined in a wild half-war-dance, half-waltz that didn’t end till Jack was almost waltzed into the lake—not that in his frame of mind he would have cared.