Sure enough, there was Bert, standing at the end of a little wharf that jutted out into the lake. He was yelling and waving his hat at them. Stretching behind him was a pretty meadow, and farther on a hill on which sat a farmhouse—Bert’s home, the Comrades felt.
It was with thankful hearts that they turned their canoes in toward the wharf and grasped the hand of their old chum again.
“Gee! but I’m glad to see you fellows up here,” said Bert. “Been looking for you since yesterday,” and he led the way up a broad path toward the house.
CHAPTER VI—GETTING READY FOR THE GAME
The welcome extended the Comrades and Pod by Bert’s parents was cordial in every sense of the word. The big farm was placed at their disposal, and Mrs. Creighton exerted herself to the utmost to provide delicacies that would tempt them, and in this she succeeded beyond her fondest expectations.
It pleased her to see these healthy young fellows eat, and Fleet, especially, was an unending source of delight to her, for when he was not praising her cooking, he was smacking his lips in the keenest enjoyment. By that, it is not meant that Fleet’s table manners were bad; on the contrary, no boy ever paid more attention to the conventions of eating than he, except when camping in the woods, or on some other informal occasion, with only his chums to see him.
The boys slept soundly the first night and arose in the morning to plunge with Bert into the waters of Lake George. Then, after a rub-down that set the blood tingling all through their bodies, they sat down to wheat cakes, maple syrup and coffee, with generous dishes of strawberries and cream on the side.
“You fellows may as well limber up your arms,” said Bert when breakfast was over, and the boys had spent half an hour talking over old times.
“That’s so; Bert promised us a game of baseball,” said Chot. “How about it, Bert?”
“It’s all arranged. Cleverdale has a mighty good team for a country village, and they have agreed to come down to-morrow for a game in our big pasture.”