Wishing to change the subject as quickly as he could, Hugh hastened to say:
“You’re not dreaming after all, Sam; you ought to remember all of us here, for you used to know us some years back. I’m Hugh Hardin, this is Arthur Cameron, and the kind chap who looked after your appetite is Billy Worth!”
Sam uttered a cry. He seemed startled, and even tried to raise himself on one arm as though to stare around him.
“Oh! the boys from Oakvale, where I used to once live!” he exclaimed, weakly. “How strange for you to be up here, just when I needed help as I never did before in all my life. What brought you up in this region? Is that a fair question, Hugh?”
He had hold of the scout master’s hand, and was patting it as though the mere contact gave him fresh courage; for like many another fellow Sam had recognized in Hugh a source of new strength.
Hugh knew that Gus was hovering close behind him, fairly quivering with eagerness. He also felt that it was high time Sam understood to whom he had been so heavily indebted for the saving of his life.
“We came up here on the invitation of one of our chums who wanted us to help him find something that was lost,” was the way Hugh put it.
“Yes, there was a fourth scout with you, I remember now,” said Sam, trying to discover the object of his solicitude, but as Gus kept behind Hugh he failed in doing this. “Where has he gone to, Hugh? I’d like to thank him, too, for all that’s been done for such a worthless fellow as I.”
“You’ll get the chance soon, Sam, never fear,” assured Hugh. “It was this chum who really saved your life, for if he hadn’t thought to fetch the hatchet along with him we couldn’t have made that litter, and carrying you here would have been a risky job. I’m afraid you would never have stood the trip. Then again he held one end of the stretcher every foot of the way, and wouldn’t let Arthur here take hold. You owe that chum the heaviest debt of gratitude going, Sam. There’s nothing you could do that would cancel your load to him.”
“But tell me, why should he do all this for a poor dog like me that’s down in the gutter, and almost out?” cried Sam, excitedly.