Step shook his head, and Poke slapped a pocket, from which came no cheering jingling of coin.
“My treat, of course!” cried Varley hastily.
“I guess we’d better not—thank you, of course, though.”
That was Sam’s instinctive observation. Step shook his head harder than ever. Poke rubbed his chin uncertainly; at that moment he was conscious of a peculiarly vigorous appetite.
Varley seemed to know how to meet the objections of the others.
“Oh, come now!” said he persuasively. “You fellows have been doing things for me, and helping me out with these contraptions——” he glanced at his snow-shoes. “You’ve given me a lot of pointers. Give me a show to even up part of it. Parker tells me the hotel is open. We’ll go there and get a little lunch, and loaf around for a while, and start for town when we feel like it. It’s the one sensible thing to do. Why not?”
None of the others found it easy to explain why it was not the sensible thing. And Varley’s careless reference to the proposed refreshment as a “little lunch” certainly did seem to throw new light on the case and remove in some degree the sense of incurring undue obligation.
“Why—why—I don’t know—that is, I don’t see——” Poke began.
“’Twould be fun,” Step admitted.
“Certainly it will—come along!” Varley urged.