The doctor and Nurse Jones also promised to join the scouts again at supper time, so Billy Worth and a corps of assistants hurried off to start preparations for the evening meal.
“We’ll try and make the poor old padrone forget all about his troubles for once,” the good-natured Billy had said when he heard who was coming. “Somehow, I kind of like that chap; there’s a deal of humor in him, once you get it on tap. And I reckon he hasn’t slept any too sound ever since this trouble came up between his people and their employer. Yes, we’ll treat him to a good square meal, such as he hasn’t had for many a day.”
The afternoon was wearing away, and night would soon be coming along. Hugh found himself wondering whether darkness would bring about any change in the relations existing between the workmen and their former boss. He was thinking about the suspicious actions of those three discharged guards when he fell into this train of speculation.
Just as he was about to leave for the camp of the scouts, one of the sheriff’s posse came to the emergency hospital with a package, saying that Mr. Campertown wished Dr. Richter and Nurse Jones to please accept the trifling addition to their supplies, as he feared they would lack some of their customary food while compelled to remain in the foreign settlement.
When the surgeon, with a smile of appreciation, opened the package—the nurse standing by with a look of wonder on her pink face—Hugh saw it contained a number of things that the head man of the guards must have laid in for his own entertainment, and was unable to take away with him: dainties, such as sardines, canned lobsters, condensed milk, tea, chocolate, and the like—and even a box of fine candy, which the gallant surgeon immediately placed in the hands of Nurse Jones.
CHAPTER VI.
AROUND THE SCOUTS’ CAMPFIRE.
“This makes me think of some of the bully times we’ve had in days gone by,” Billy Worth was saying at the moment Hugh entered the new camp, “and we expected company from town, and were spreading ourselves to show folks what fine cooks scouts can be when they try real hard.”
There was indeed considerable bustle in evidence. Being “chief cook and bottle-washer,” for the occasion, as he termed it, Billy had set a number of the fellows to doing different tasks. Harold Tremaine and Ned Twyford sat with their backs against a tree, peeling potatoes; Tom Sherwood, who often boasted of his strong eyes, had been delegated to prepare a big mess of onions, and, though bravely sticking to the job, despite the smarting, was already crying over his job.
Others were chopping wood and carrying the kindlings to where the cook could lay his hand upon them as needed. As usual, Monkey Stallings swung head-downward from the limb of an adjacent tree; those who had given him such a suggestive nickname certainly knew what they were about, for the agile boy always seemed happier carrying on his remarkable gymnastics than when soberly standing on his feet.
Taken all in all, it was a bustling picture upon which the scout master looked as he stood there smiling. Billy quickly observed his coming, and called him over.