“You always make it a paying business for the victim, Phil,” declared Lub; “for you give him a jolly lunch to settle for his trouble. Huh! seems to me I’d like to just pull a string and get a flash if only it meant grub every time, and no harm done. They’re a lucky lot, I’ll be bound.”
Lub had taken a turn during the morning in trying to talk with the tongue-tied boy. Of course it could only be done through the use of many signs, although there was always a chance that the little chap might know a name if he heard it.
“When I kept repeating the word Baylay I could see that he seemed interested,” Lub told the others. “It’s too bad we didn’t ask Mr. McNab what the names of the Baylay kids were. I’ve tried every one I could think of and none seemed to fit. He shook his curly head every time as if he wanted me to know he owned to no such name. I reckon now they must be out of the ordinary.”
And it afterwards turned out that Lub was quite right when he chanced to make this assertion, for the boy’s name was indeed out of the ordinary; so it was no wonder Lub failed to strike it in his vocabulary.
Noon came and found things just about as before.
Some of them had been half expecting to see a bulky figure pushing toward the camp; but the hours had crept on without such a thing coming to pass.
“It’s too late now to think of starting out to try and find the place where the Baylay cabin is located,” asserted Ethan, when the afternoon was fairly well advanced, and the clouds seemed to have given up the battle for supremacy, for they were retreating all along the line, leaving a cold blue sky in evidence instead.
“Of course it is,” Lub hastened to add, a wrinkle making its appearance across his forehead, a “pucker” Ethan always called it, and which was apt to show whenever the fat chum became worried over something or other.
The quick look he took in the direction of his charge explained the cause on this particular occasion. Lub always was fond of kids, and they loved him too. In this case the fact of their visitor being a waif of the snow forest had more or less to do with his feelings; and then, besides, the poor little chap being unable to do more than make those distressing sounds when he did want to express his feelings the worst kind brought a pang to Lub’s tender heart.
“Yes,” Phil decided, “it would be foolish to attempt anything of the kind now. It can wait until morning. They’ve given up all hope by now, I’m afraid, so they’ll not be apt to suffer much worse for a little more delay. And getting the boy back safe and sound will make them all the happier.”