“So he remembered ’baout yer arter all,” Jeb had said, as pleased as Raymond himself. “I kinder knowed he would. If he ain’t a trusty (Jeb always said trusty when he meant trustee) ’n’ got rights, gol, I dunno who has. They wuz jest goin’ on th’boat, I reckon, when it popped inter his head like a dose uv buckshot ’n’ he sent it right from th’wharf.——’ N’ I dun’t hev ter get out my ink bottle ’n’ my old double-barrelled pen ter indorse, neither.”
There they were—two twenties and a ten; to Raymond they seemed like a fortune as he watched Jeb fold them up and slip them into his home-made buckskin wallet.
All this had happened before this auspicious Saturday, but the dispelling of Raymond’s fears had given rise to new apprehensions.
“Even if they come,” said he, “maybe Garry won’t be with them—maybe they won’t stop for him.” Garry Everson was all that was left of the little troop he had striven to keep together the previous summer and the Bridgeboro troop had promised to stop for him and bring him along.
“An’ then agin, mebbe they will,” laughed Jeb.
“Who do you think will be the first to get here, Jeb?”
“Mebbe them lads from South New Jersey, mebbe the Pennsylvany youngsters,” said Jeb, consulting his list from the home-made buckskin wallet. The trustees kept these lists in the neatest and most approved manner, but Jeb had a system of record keeping all his own. “Let’s see, naouw, thar’s thet troop with the red-headed boy from Merryland—’member ’em, don’t ye? They’ll be comin’ all week, more’n like. Seems ony like yist’day, thet that ole hill over thar wuz covered with snow—’member how me an’ you watched it? We had a rough winter of it, didn’t we. Here, lemme feel yer muscle agin now. Gee-williger! Gittin’ ter be a reg’lar Samson, ain’t ye?”
“Now that it’s time for them to come,” said Raymond, slowly, “I’m almost sorry—kind of. It was dandy being alone here with you.”
Jeb slapped him on the shoulder and smiled again that smile that drew the wrinkles like sun rays around his twinkling eyes, and went about his work of preparation. Perhaps he, too, rough old scout that he was, felt that it had been “dandy” having little Raymond alone with him through those long, cold winter months.
All day long Raymond kept his gaze across Black Lake, for he knew that the Bridgeboro boys, hiking it from the Hudson, would come that way; but the hours of the afternoon passed and there were no arrivals. The hills surrounding the camp began to darken in the twilight, save for the crimson tinge upon their summits from the dying sun; the dark waters of the lake grew more sombre in the twilight and the still solemnity of evening, which was nowhere more gloomy and impressive than at this lakeside camp in the hills, fell upon the scene and cast its spell upon the lonely boy as it always did. But no one came.