FOUR IN CAMP
[CHAPTER I]
INTRODUCES NELSON TILFORD, AND WITNESSES HIS ARRIVAL AT CAMP CHICORA
“That’s Chicora over there.”
The man at the wheel turned to the boy standing beside him and nodded his head at a landing toward which the nose of the big steam-launch was slowly turning. It lay less than an eighth of a mile away across the smooth waters of the lake, a good-sized wharf, a float, a pole from which a blue-and-gray flag hung lifeless, and a flotilla of various kinds of boats. Several figures stood upon the pier, and their voices came shrill and clear across the intervening space. From the shore, which here circled inward into a tiny cove, the hill swept up rather abruptly for three hundred feet or more, and a third of the way up the gleam of unpainted boards through the trees told Nelson Tilford of the location of the camp which was to be his home for the next two months. It was a pleasant, peaceful scene before him, but the shadow of the hill had already crept well into the lake, leaving the shore and wooded slope in twilight, and a slight qualm of loneliness stole over him for the instant.
He had left the Boston express at Warder, six miles away, at half past four, and had been rattled over a constantly turning road behind a pair of stout horses to Chicora Landing, where, followed by his trunk, he had boarded one of the several small steam-boats which lay at intervals up and down the long shed like horses in their stalls. A half a mile at slow speed through a winding river, scarcely wide enough in places for the boat to scrape through between the low banks, had brought them into Little Chicora, hardly more than a pond. Another and far shorter stretch of river followed, and then, with a warning blast, the steam-launch had thrust her bow into the broad waters of the big lake, spread out like a great mirror in the evening sunlight, dotted here and there with well-wooded islands, and guarded by gently rising hills covered with maples, pines, white and black birches, poplars, and many other trees whose names Nelson did not know. White farmhouses gleamed now and then from the shores, and slender purple ribbons of smoke, rising straight into the calm evening air, told of other dwellings, unseen for the thick foliage. They had made three stops on the south side of the lake, first at Chicora Inn Landing, from where the big hotel was plainly visible a quarter of a mile away, then at Squirrel Island and Plum Island. Nelson had been interested all the way, for he had never seen a New Hampshire lake before, and the glimpses he had obtained of the comfortable summer camps and their healthy, sun-browned inhabitants had pleased him hugely. But when Plum Island had been left behind and the boat had entered the shadowed margin of the lake his spirits began to sink. The water and the dim woods looked cold and inhospitable to the city-bred lad. He wondered what the fellows of Camp Chicora would be like, and wished that he had joined at the beginning of the season instead of a fortnight after it. Now that it was past, that week at the beach with a school friend had not been especially enjoyable after all; and the rôle of the new boy was not, he knew from experience, at all comfortable. He almost wished he had held out against his father’s desires and stayed snugly at home.
His rueful thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a shrill blast of the launch’s whistle. They were close to the landing, and Nelson picked up his suit-case and climbed to the deck. The bell tinkled, the churn of the propeller ceased, and the boat sidled up to the pier. Nelson stepped ashore into a group of half-a-dozen fellows and set his bag down, prepared to lend a hand to the landing of his trunk. But some one was before him, a man of twenty-three or four, who, when the trunk was safely ashore, turned to Nelson with outstretched hand and welcoming smile.
“This is Nelson Tilford, isn’t it?” he asked, as they shook hands. “Glad to see you. Mr. Clinton didn’t get your letter until this noon, so we couldn’t meet you at the station. Did you have any trouble finding your way to us?”
“No, sir,” said Nelson, “every one seemed to know all about the camp.”