"Day before yesterday, so we thought we would wait and start for the camp together," returned Mr. Latimer.
As there were no porters or cabs in the isolated town, they had to carry their own luggage. Mr. Latimer undertook to find a boy with a wheelbarrow to take the trunks to the hotel. "Hotel! Is there such a thing here, Mr. Latimer?" laughed Meredith.
"Wait until you see! You will be very proud to send home picture post-cards of the place!" replied Mrs. Latimer.
"Where's Paul and Marjory?" suddenly asked Meredith, who had missed Jinks, his chum, on the trip from Oakdale.
"Why, Marjory is reading to an old invalid this afternoon and Paul went fishing with some boys," explained Mrs. Latimer.
While the Starrs are following their friends, the Latimers, from the station to the hotel, let us see how they all came to be in this faraway place in Canada.
When the Starrs left the island in Casco Bay in the early part of September, Mr. Latimer, who lived in Portland, Maine, mentioned a trip to the lumber regions of Canada. As Mr. Starr was interested in a large lumber deal with Mr. Latimer, and had spent his summer in Maine on that account, he decided to associate himself with Mr. Latimer in the Canadian Pine Investment Co.
Consequently, the Starr family packed up their belongings and returned to Oakwood from Maine several weeks sooner than they had expected, for it was necessary that the children be completely fitted out with warm clothing, and other necessities, if they were to spend the winter in a lumber camp with the Latimers.
Of course, Mrs. Starr worried about keeping the children from school all winter, but Mrs. Latimer said that the governess, who had been with her children for several years, could so arrange her hours that all the children could study under her direction. This arrangement satisfied Mrs. Starr, and the only drawback to enjoying the novelty of life in a lumber camp was entirely removed.
The Starrs left Oakwood the latter part of October and reached Grand Forks the first of November. From there they traveled by various routes until they reached their destination in the extreme southeastern part of Manitoba.