Preparations progressed rapidly. As Ralph had already stowed away quite a large quantity of wood for use during the night, that labor was spared the two late arrivals, which fact pleased Bud very much. He could work as hard as the next one when interested in what he was doing, but gathering fuel had never appealed to him in the same way it did to Billy Worth, who was all the time figuring out what splendid things the wood could be used to cook.
As the three boys sat around eating the evening meal, they chatted in a lively manner. Hugh told how he and Bud had had a fine lift by means of the farmer's wagon, and then continued:
"I suppose you started this morning, and on that account missed your Thanksgiving turkey, Ralph? But you said your mother was not feeling well; and so perhaps the feast has been postponed at your house to a more convenient time?"
"Just what it has," replied the other. "You see my married sisters are expected home on Saturday night, and so mother decided to let the big dinner go until Sunday, when we'll all be together again. I just took a snack to munch on at noon, and brought some things to cook. I got here two hours back, and had plenty of time to fix things as I wanted them for my one night out."
"Perhaps you'll make it two, if we decide to stay that long, eh, Ralph?" asked Bud, who was feeling much more warmly toward the other since partaking of the delicious quail. "You see, we've got plenty of rations along for three, and you'd be as welcome to share with us as a shower in June."
"I'll see about that to-morrow afternoon, Bud," replied the other. "But before I forget it, I want to tell you boys about a couple of queer men I happened to see while coming through the woods not more than a mile or so away from here."
"P'raps timber prospectors" suggested Hugh; "I've known of such men to come up in this region trying to spy out new fields for operating their destructive saw-mills. Somehow I hate to see the forest wiped out that way. A tree takes some hundreds of years to mature, and then it goes down in a heap, to be sawed up into boards. It seems like a shame to me every time I think of how the timber is disappearing. I believe in the work of the Forest Reserve Board. It's high time this country began to think of keeping what it's got before everything is lost. But tell us about these men that you saw. They were not tramps, Ralph?"
"Oh, no, they were dressed too well for that," replied the other quickly. "I happened to sight them in time to duck behind a tree, and they never once suspected that anybody was near. One was a tall, thin man, a German, I thought, while the other was dark and short,—-fact is, I took him for a Chinese, a Japanese or a Korean from the color of his skin and his black bristling hair."
"That sounds interesting, anyway!" commented Bud. Then he added with a little amused laugh, "P'raps they've heard in some mysterious way, Hugh, how a celebrated young inventor named Bud Morgan means to try out his latest wonderful stunt, and they hope to steal the concrete result of his budding genius. But go on, Ralph. What did they do that looked suspicious?"
"Oh! their every action struck me as queer," Ralph continued. "You see they talked in a low voice, put their heads close together, looked all around as if they were afraid some one might be watching them, and then moved off, always turning to the right and to the left. You know when valuable iron ore was discovered on our farm, for a long time afterward strange men came prowling around there. It struck me these fellows might be looking for something like that."