The boy was satisfied for he had absolute confidence that his companion could not make a mistake.
“But suppose you hadn’t hit him—I mean fetched him?”
“Son, wot yer got to do, yer do. When I told General Custer onct that we’d get picked off like cherries offen a tree if we tried rushin’ a pack uv Sioux that was in ambush, he says, ‘Jeb, mebbe it cain’t be done, I ain’t sayin’, but jest the same, we got ter do it.’ Some on us got dropped, but we done it.”
“Did General Custer call you by your first name?”
“Same’s you do.”
This was too much for the little fellow. “Gee, it must have been great to have General Custer call you by your first name.”
“Wal, now, I ben thinkin’ ’twas purty fine this winter hevin’ yew call me by my fust name, ’n’ keep me comp’ny here. We’ve got ter be close pards, me an’ you, hain’t we, son?”
“Gee, I’m almost sorry they’re coming—kind of.”
They were certainly coming—“in chunks,” as Roy Blakeley would have said, and before night the camp would be a veritable beehive. All summer troops would be coming and going, but just now the opening rush was at hand, and the exodus from eastern towns and cities, following the closing of schools, would go far to fill the camp even to its generous capacity before this Saturday’s sun had set.
The Bridgeboro Troop, from the home town of the camp’s generous founder, Mr. John Temple, would arrive sometime in the afternoon “with bells on” according to the post card which little Raymond Hollister had brought up from the post office the day before.