“I'm just eighteen,” he answered, with a wink that gave me to understand that I was not to accept the statement as a positive fact.
“Do you think they'd take me?”
“Certainly; you're more'n eighteen.”
“When are you going back?”
“Shall start to-night. Think you'll go along?”
“Yes; if you really think they'll take me.”
“I'm sure they will; you just let me manage the thing for you.”
“All right; I'm with you.”
I went with Tracy that night—after he had seen his girl home. As we climbed the steep mountain, I expected every minute to hear the footsteps of a brigade of relatives in pursuit. We reached the Tracy domicile about midnight, and went to bed. I could not sleep. The frogs in the pond near the house kept up a loud chorus, led by a bull-frog with a deep bass voice. I had heard the frogs on other occasions when fishing in the mountain lakes, and the boys agreed that the burden of the frog chorus was:
You'd better go round!
You'd better go round!
We'll bite your bait off!
We'll bite your bait off!