“The price of a tractor,” Lawrence agreed. “It’s too bad.”
It was too bad indeed. All day, five days in the week, they worked hard at clearing land. The trees were coming down. After the spring thaw thousands of stumps must be pulled. A tractor would do that work. After that it would draw the plows.
“If only I hadn’t lost him!” Johnny groaned.
“Aw! Forget it!” Lawrence exclaimed. “Come on! Let’s go home by the camp.”
The “camp,” as they had come to call it, was a three-sided shelter built on a corner of their forty-acre claim. It had been built, and apparently abandoned, only a few months before their arrival. Such a snug shelter was it that the boys had often sought its protection from storms. Once, with a roaring fire before its open side, they had spent a night sleeping on its bed of evergreen boughs.
The place never lost its fascination. Who had built it? Trader, hunter, trapper or gold prospector? To this question they could form no answer. Would he some day return? To this, strangely enough on this very afternoon they were to discover the answer, at least that which appeared to be the answer. As they were looking it over for the twentieth time Lawrence suddenly exclaimed, “Look! Here’s a bit of cloth tacked to this post. And there’s a note written on it in indelible ink!”
Johnny did look. “Read it!” he exclaimed.
“I will,” Lawrence began to read. “Can’t quite make it out,” he murmured. “Oh, yes, this is it.
“‘I WILL BE BACK ON JULY 1st. BILL.’”
“So he’s coming back,” Johnny’s tone was strange.