“Pretty good letter, hey?” Harry said. “Who do you suppose he was?”
Brent just shook his head. Then he said, “He was a rough and ready old scout with a heart as big as a ham. When it came to a showdown, he cared more about a tree for he and his precious Ann to sit under, than he did for a couple of bags of gold dust. He was one lollapazuzza!”
Harry just said, “When it came to a showdown.”
“Probably on his way back from the Klondike, hey?” Brent said. “Lots of them came down across Canada. Maybe he and Ann lived up along the Dahadinee River when they were kids.”
“No telling,” Harry said.
Then nobody said anything, except Grove said we had better be starting our fire.
“And he was bringing these seeds home to her,” Harry said, very quiet, “so they would grow up and they could have some kind of a tree at home—— Oh, I think he was just splendid!”
I knew he was just imitating Grace Bronson.
All of a sudden he jumped up and said, “Let’s have one of those shovels. Pee-wee, and I’ll make a dig—just for a tryout. Then we’ll get down to business in the morning.”
Pee-wee got up kind of slow and got a shovel out of the tent and handed it to Harry.