“Do you mean in the woods, sir?” asked Bluff eagerly, for the thought of having to go to all the trouble of building some sort of shelter had been worrying him.
“Just what I do, son,” the lumberman told him. “I spent one winter in it, and that gave me a chance to travel over this whole section, so finally I organized the company that purchased this tract.”
The boys exchanged pleased looks. Really, things were coming out better than any of them had dreamed.
Mr. Darrel showed them where they could leave their packs. There was a bunk for each in the building where he had his own sleeping accommodations. This suited Frank much better than if they had had to stay with the loggers, some of whom were a rough lot, as he saw when they came trooping in.
It was an experience the boys enjoyed to the full. At the supper table they heard considerable talk about lumbering, and picked up some valuable information by using their ears.
Afterward they sat with Mr. Darrel before the fire in his smaller building, and listened to what he had to tell them. The paper had been duly signed in the presence of witnesses. One of the lumberjacks, really the foreman of the crowd, being a duly appointed notary public, was in a position to handle the affair according to law.
The paper was now safely fastened in Frank’s inner pocket, where it could hardly be lost, no matter what happened.
After the lumberman had spoken of many things of which the boys manifested an eager curiosity to hear, he in turn began to ask questions. This resulted in their telling him some of the queer happenings that had accompanied their numerous past outings; in all of which he evinced great interest.
“I must say you are boys after my own heart,” he said, as the evening grew late, and Bluff had even yawned openly as many as three times. “If my little fellow had lived I would have wished him to be built on just the same pattern. I meant that he should love the Great Outdoors, and yet never be cruel in his pursuit of what we call sport. But he was taken away from me. What I am piling up now will some of these days go to a poor little crippled nephew in a New England town.”
As Bluff again yawned at a fearful rate their kind host realized that the boys were more or less played out after their long journey, and the task of “toting” their heavy packs into the Big Woods.