"Oh, then the stuff may remain under my bed," quickly spoke Tom. "If Miss Dorothy is interested—so am I."
"I had her first," objected Roland, joking. "I may buy a couple of rag dolls myself. Does Miss Dorothy prefer the rag variety?"
Ned seemed all attention to the car. Occasionally he turned to speak to Joe and Roger, but otherwise he took little part in his friends' badinage.
"Where are you bound for?" asked Tom as Ned guided the Fire Bird into a narrow lane.
"We'll try old Hemlock Grove first. There should be plenty of green stuff there," replied Ned.
"Yes, and if I mistake not," added Nat, "there is in those woods a cabin—old Hume's place. We may be able to lay out there for dinner."
"Goody!" exclaimed Roger, whose eyes had been continually on the big basket of stuff which Norah, the good-natured cook at The Cedars, had put up for the boys.
"Right," concluded Ned; "there's a chimney and all. Just the place for a layout. Let me see, where did that shanty used to stand?"
"I see something like a cabin over there," said Joe, pointing to a corner in the woods where great oak trees towered above all others in the grove. Even in December some brown leaves clung to these giants of the forest, that now rustled a gentle welcome to the boys in the Fire Bird.
Ned swung up as close as the wagon road would allow, and presently the party had "disembarked," and were scampering through the woods toward the abandoned hut of an old woodchopper.