“Looks pale; must have seen a haunt!”
“Got your goat with you?”
“Come join the young men at their council fire!”
Walter grinned at the good-natured chaff of a group of boys squatting in front of a shelter tent pitched on the shore of the lake.
“Where’s the fire?” he asked.
“What!” cried Tug Benson. “Is he coming among us with the eyes of a paleface?” He spread his hands above the ashes of a long dead fire as if warming them. “And here,” he added in an injured tone, “we’ve been sitting for an hour roasting that loon he heard last night, that he might feast with us. Now he doesn’t even see the fire!” He gave an exaggerated sniff. “He’s done to a turn.”
“Which?” asked Billy Buxby innocently. “Walt or the loon?”
“Both,” said Spud Ely with conviction. “Say, Upton, tell us about that scrap.”
“Nothing to tell,” replied Walter.
“Modest, though mighty, as becomes a son of the Tortoise,” commented Tug. “Say, Walt, did he have light curly hair and a front tooth missing?”