“If I got kidnapped when I was a kid, my father he’d have given them a million dollars.” That seemed a rather high price to pay for Archie Dennison; still what he said might have been true.
CHAPTER XIII
GRAY WOLF
Not a light was to be seen when they reached camp, only a few dying embers in the camp-fire clearing. Even as they glanced at the deserted spot, one, then another, of these glowing particles disappeared as if they too were retiring for the night. Out of the darkness appeared Sandwich, the camp dog, wagging his tail and pawing Wilfred’s feet, welcoming the late comers home without any sound of voice. Somewhere a katydid was humming its insistent little ditty; there was no other sound. The black lake lay in its setting of dark mountains like a great somber jewel. They talked low, for the solemn stillness seemed to impose this modulation.
They paused before the main pavilion where, for one reason or another, many scouts were housed in the big dormitory. Before this was the bulletin board at which Hervey Willetts had on a memorable occasion thrown a tomato which was old enough to be treated with more respect. A pencil hung on a string from this board. Wilfred lifted it and, in obedience to the rule, wrote on a paper tacked there for such purpose, his name and that of his companion and the time of their late arrival. They had overstepped their privilege by half an hour or so, but Wilfred wrote down the correct time by his companion’s gold watch.
“We could say my watch stopped,” Archie suggested hesitatingly.
“Only it didn’t,” said Wilfred.
“Do you want me to walk up the hill with you?”
“Sure, if you’d like to.”
This seemed chummy and redeemed Archie a trifle in Wilfred’s rather dubious consideration of him.
They started up the hill back of the main body of the camp and entered the woods which crowned the eminence on which the three cabins of the First Bridgeboro troop were situated.