Just then the boys came into the cleared space in front of the cabin and saluted the old man courteously.
“Waal, you be pow’ful fine youngsters,” he said, fairly beaming with delight at the unexpected visit. “Be this your doggie?”
“You bet your life he is!” Bob asserted, proudly. “Jack here is his real owner, but we all have a part interest in him. We come from the Boy Scouts’ camp about a mile back,” he went on to explain, “and we’re bound for the bluestone quarries.”
“Waal, I’ll be durned!” again said the old man, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Seems to me I heerd somethin’ ’bout a boys’ camp t’other day when I was down in town. Layin’ out that new ’state or whatever you call it, beant you?”
“Yes, we’re locating lakes and brooks and different kinds of trees, and we’re getting great fun out of it, too,” Jack replied; then added, “I’m afraid we’ll have to get along, fellows. We’ve got quite a way to go yet.”
“What’s your hurry, boys? ’Tain’t so often Old Sam has company drop in to see him that he’s glad to see ’em go. Why can’t ye stay and hev a bite o’ somethin’ to eat with me? I am bound for the quarries myself to get the ile from any o’ them pesky snakes what are fools enough to let me ketch ’em. I kin show you a durn sight better road there than any you know of.”
The boys, who had brought some lunch with them, were only too glad to accept Old Sam’s kind invitation. Don, who had felt a lively regard for the old man from the first minute he looked at him, trotted contentedly into the cabin with the rest.
The old man was so happy to have someone to talk to that he kept up a continual chatter as he put the frying-pan on the stove and sliced some bacon.
“You see,” he was saying, “it was like this, boys. We had had a turrible late spring same’s we’ve had this year an’ the river was pow’ful swollen an’ angry like, along o’ the snow meltin’ an’ comin’ down from the mountains. Waal, my Rover an’ me, we wuz walkin’ along when all o’ a sudden we heerd a child screamin’. Sez I to Rover, sez I, ‘It’s ’bout time, my boy, that we wuz findin’ out the meanin’ o’ that there scream.’
“Rover seemed like he wuz o’ the same opinion, cuz before I had time to git the words out o’ my mouth, away he went like a streak. When I got to the river, I see my Rover gather hisself together and spring into the river, makin’ straight fer a little patch o’ white that I took fer a child’s dress. It didn’t take long fer me to git my coat off and foller him, let me tell ye!”