“It’s nice of you to say that, Billy, even if not true. I’ll try my level best to please you, but if I succeed it will only be because I’ve got such a splendid lot of fellows to work with.”
“What d’ye think of the place our scout master picked out for us, Hugh?”
“Couldn’t be much better, it seems to me, Billy. We’ve got mountain scenery and running water. We can take long hikes to the top of the range there; and at the same time get to a town inside of an hour if we want to. The combination is pretty nearly perfect I should say in so far as that goes.”
The stout boy in khaki, Billy Worth, looked quickly up at the face of his companion, Hugh Hardin. Evidently there must have been some little intonation connected with the last part of the other’s remark that aroused a sudden suspicion in his mind.
“Something you don’t appear to like about it, Hugh,” he remarked. “Has it anything to do with this rapid river, which might be dangerous to a fellow not knowing how to swim, or take care of himself?”
“I wasn’t thinking about that just then, Billy; and besides, all the boys, so far as I know, are good swimmers—unless it’s that new recruit, Harold Tremaine; and we’ve got to find out considerable about him on this trip.”
“Then perhaps you happen to know something about the farmers of this section, and that they’ll raise a kick against scouts crossing their fields; how about that guess, Mr. Scout Master?”
“Still shy more or less, Billy,” the other told him. “To relieve your mind, since I see you’re bound to get the truth, I’ll tell you what it is. I understand that a couple of miles away toward the west of this place, there’s a big establishment or cement works where they employ a couple of hundred workmen.”
“Why, yes, I believe that’s so,” interrupted Billy. “It’s called the Samson Cement Company, seems to me. But what’s that got to do with us scouts, Hugh?”
“I hope it isn’t going to have anything to do with us,” came the reply, as something like a slight frown appeared on Hugh’s forehead. “But it happens that there’s some sort of trouble going on at the works.”