"I am at your service, paymaster," replied Major Wilkins, courteously, as he glanced over the papers just handed to him, "and you shall be forwarded with all speed. But you will surely spend the night with us. We—"
"Couldn't think of it, my dear sir! couldn't think of it for a moment, delighted as I should be to do so," interrupted the new arrival. "You see, my mission is of such urgency. Then, too, I am desirous of overtaking my young friends Christie and Hester before—By Jove! there they are now! What are you chaps doing here? I thought you were in a hurry to get on."
"Oh, Bullen! how could you have imagined such a thing?" asked Christie, gravely, as he shook hands with his recent travelling-companion. "We were in haste to leave Johnson Castle, to be sure, but since then—why, my dear fellow, we have simply loafed, in the hope that you would overtake us, and having waited here as long as we dared, were just about to retrace our course in search of you."
"Yes indeed," added Donald, readily taking the cue from his friend; "we have been so distressed at your non-appearance that we really could not have waited any longer. Then, too, you know one can so easily exhaust the resources of a place like this in twenty-four hours."
"Twenty-four hours!" gasped Bullen. "Have you chaps really been here twenty-four hours?"
"More or less," assented Christie, cheerfully. "But where have you been lingering all this time? We thought you must have returned to New York. Oh, I remember! There were attractions at Oswego. Eh, Bullen! you fickle dog, you?"
"Confound you! I haven't lingered," sputtered the little paymaster, whose face was rapidly assuming an apoplectic hue.
"Indeed, you have not, paymaster," broke in Major Wilkins, coming to his rescue, "for, from the Oswego date on this letter, I see you have broken the record and made the fastest time ever known between here and there. These chaps only got in a few minutes ahead of you, and I'll warrant you gave them at least a day's start. How did you manage it?"
"Oh, you villains!" cried the mollified paymaster, shaking his fist at the laughing subalterns. "Never mind, I'll get even with you!" Then, to the major, he replied: "I confess I was somewhat impatient to get here, and so I allowed my crew to work nights as well as in the daytime. In that way we came through without a stop, save such as were necessary for the cooking of our meals."
"But I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed the astonished major. "It is all I can do to keep Indian crews at work from sunrise to within an hour of sunset, and they always insist on being in camp before dark. What inducements did you offer them?"