They quickly placed the almost helpless young fellow on the litter. He tried the best he could to assist himself, but if the success of the undertaking had depended on Sam’s ability to do things it would have been an utter failure.
Gus pushed forward, and somehow Hugh seemed to be able to sense what was in his mind, for he immediately jerked at Arthur’s sleeve and called in his ear:
“Let Gus have the rear end of the stretcher, Arthur. He wants to feel that he’s having a big share in saving a life, and it’s an old story with us, so you won’t miss anything.”
Arthur was only too willing. He was one of those fellows who like to go about doing their work without the least bluster or boasting. Indeed, times without number Arthur Cameron had been known to do his best to hide his light under a bushel; for he took much more satisfaction from the inward consciousness that he had done his part manfully than in the thought of any reward.
When Gus realized that he was to be allowed to handle one end of the litter on which his erring brother was stretched he showed by his eagerness that his heart must be filled with gratitude toward these fine chums who were always doing things to please others.
Hugh himself took the forward end, with Arthur going ahead in order to pick out the easiest path, though truth to tell there was very little choice, so long as they were compelled to keep the creek on their right.
Manfully did Gus struggle along. If he staggered at times under the many difficulties that beset his wavering feet it was only to shut his teeth together harder than ever, and mentally take a fresh grip on himself. All that was best in the lad’s nature came to the surface in that trying hour, and he rose to meet the occasion in a manner that was bound to give him great satisfaction later on, when memory again brought the thrilling episodes of that stormy night vividly before his mind.
Thus stumbling, yet always pushing onward, they gradually drew nearer the vicinity of the old lumber camp, though poor Gus feared he would never be able to hold out to the end.
“Whoopee!”
That was Arthur shouting at the top of his voice, and the sound thrilled Gus in a wonderful manner. He realized that Arthur would not give vent to such a cry if he did not mean to infuse them with new hope.
Staring ahead, Gus discovered a light. Yes, it must be coming from one of the small windows of the bunk-house, where possibly Billy, good old Billy, had set a candle to burn with the idea of shedding hope abroad as well as he could manage it.
Perhaps Gus realized as never before what that old song really meant when it went on to tell about the “light in the window placed as a guide to wandering feet.”
At any rate, the sight gave Gus new strength and inspiration. He stumbled again and again, but would not allow himself to fall, neither could Arthur coax him to relinquish his end of the litter. Gus could be very stubborn when he wanted, and as this quality is closely allied with determination he was likely to amount to something, once he found his proper mission in the world.
Finally they arrived before the door of the bunk-house. Here their loud shouts must have been heard by Billy, for the door was suddenly thrown open and a bulky figure came rushing out, eager to assist in any way possible.
Two minutes later and the entire party had found shelter under the friendly roof of Mr. Merrivale’s big cabin, where Billy had kept the fire going merrily all the time.
Sam was immediately placed upon several blankets close to the fire, where the genial warmth would do much to restore his fast ebbing strength.
With the closing of the stout door much of the clamor of the storm that had been beating in their ears so long was deadened, so that talking became possible again without straining their voices unduly.
Sam Merrivale lay there, white of face, and with his eyes closed. Gus stared hard at his brother, and then looked pitifully toward Arthur. The latter did not need to be asked any question in order to understand what fear was gripping the heart of Gus.
“He’ll be feeling better shortly, when the warmth of the fire begins to get in its work,” he told the other.
After that Gus kept somewhat in the background, where he could see what went on and at the same time not be noticed by Sam, should the latter open his eyes and look at his rescuers.
This was the time for Billy to make his bid for recognition.
“Hugh,” he went on to say, confidingly buttonholing the scout master, “I went and heated up a can of mutton broth, thinking it might come in handy when you got the poor chap back here.”
“Bully for you, Billy!” exclaimed the other, slapping the broad back of the speaker with unction. “Just the thing to revive his energies. They always give mutton broth to invalids, because it gets in its work quicker than almost anything else going. Hurry it along in a tin cup, and don’t have it steaming hot, so it’ll scald his lips.”
Arthur meanwhile had succeeded in getting Sam into a half reclining position. He was talking to the late tramp, and in this way trying to arouse him.
“You’re all right now, Sam,” was the burden of Arthur’s communication. “No danger of your being left to the storm. See what a fine fire we’ve got here. Billy is coming right along with some jolly stuff that will warm your insides, and do you heaps of good. Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high, Sam. There’s your partner Casey, watching you, and see how glad he looks to be with us. Chances are Billy’s been and fed him to the limit while we were getting you here. This way, Billy, with that broth!”
Sam smiled wanly. How could he help but feel interested when treated so like an honored guest rather than a homeless tramp?
Just then Billy came up bearing the big tin cup full of steaming broth that gave out a most appetizing smell. Sam must have been pretty near half starved, for what did he do but reach out a trembling hand, help to guide the cup to his lips, and then proceed to gulp down the contents with the avidity of a hungry dog.
Presently the cup was empty. Billy looked at Arthur as much as to say there was more where that came from, if the “doctor” considered it wise that Sam be given a second helping.
“A little later on you can feed him the rest, Billy,” he was told. “Better not go too heavy all at once, or his stomach may reject it, and he’d lose the benefit.”
One thing sure, no person seemed to be taking any notice of the storm now. It could howl its worst, and turn bitter cold for that matter; so long as they had a stout roof over their heads, plenty of food to eat, and the ability to dash out, ax in hand, to cut a fresh supply of fuel, what did it matter?
The warm and strengthening mutton broth had already affected Sam wonderfully, as could be seen in the way he began to look around, and take notice of things. He even smiled at Casey, which fact appeared to give that individual more or less satisfaction, for he grinned broadly and nodded back, muttering something to the effect that the two of them had good cause to be grateful for the favors that had come to them when things looked blackest.
It was evident that Sam was puzzled. Hugh could see his eyes, no longer dim with weakness and lack of energy, roving around. First he would stare at bulky Billy, who beamed down upon him good-naturedly; then he would turn his gaze on Hugh himself, and finally Arthur came in for a share of his attention. He gazed at them all long and steadily.
“I seem to be dreaming,” he told Hugh, when that worthy bent down closer to him. “There’s something about you all I seem to know, but when I try to place you my mind gets in a whirl again, and I think I’m seeing things like I did the time I was down with fever, and father——”
He stopped as he inadvertently said that word, which possibly had not passed his lips for a long time. Hugh saw a flash of color mount into his white cheeks as some bitter memory gripped his soul.
Wishing to change the subject as quickly as he could, Hugh hastened to say:
“You’re not dreaming after all, Sam; you ought to remember all of us here, for you used to know us some years back. I’m Hugh Hardin, this is Arthur Cameron, and the kind chap who looked after your appetite is Billy Worth!”
Sam uttered a cry. He seemed startled, and even tried to raise himself on one arm as though to stare around him.
“Oh! the boys from Oakvale, where I used to once live!” he exclaimed, weakly. “How strange for you to be up here, just when I needed help as I never did before in all my life. What brought you up in this region? Is that a fair question, Hugh?”
He had hold of the scout master’s hand, and was patting it as though the mere contact gave him fresh courage; for like many another fellow Sam had recognized in Hugh a source of new strength.
Hugh knew that Gus was hovering close behind him, fairly quivering with eagerness. He also felt that it was high time Sam understood to whom he had been so heavily indebted for the saving of his life.
“We came up here on the invitation of one of our chums who wanted us to help him find something that was lost,” was the way Hugh put it.
“Yes, there was a fourth scout with you, I remember now,” said Sam, trying to discover the object of his solicitude, but as Gus kept behind Hugh he failed in doing this. “Where has he gone to, Hugh? I’d like to thank him, too, for all that’s been done for such a worthless fellow as I.”
“You’ll get the chance soon, Sam, never fear,” assured Hugh. “It was this chum who really saved your life, for if he hadn’t thought to fetch the hatchet along with him we couldn’t have made that litter, and carrying you here would have been a risky job. I’m afraid you would never have stood the trip. Then again he held one end of the stretcher every foot of the way, and wouldn’t let Arthur here take hold. You owe that chum the heaviest debt of gratitude going, Sam. There’s nothing you could do that would cancel your load to him.”
“But tell me, why should he do all this for a poor dog like me that’s down in the gutter, and almost out?” cried Sam, excitedly.
With that Hugh swung Gus around so that he faced the one upon the blankets, and at the same instant exclaimed:
“Because he’s your own brother, Sam, the little Gus you left at home when you went away after quarreling with your father! He’s been sent up here through the love your mother still bears you, to try for the last time to bring you to your senses, and fetch you to your knees asking pardon. Now you know why we’re in the old logging camp, Sam. Your mother learned that you were here; she would have come herself if she had been able; but in her place she sent a messenger in Gus.”
The young fellow on the blankets stared at Gus as though he could hardly believe his ears and eyes. The bitter thoughts that had held possession of his mind all these years struggled desperately to keep possession of his soul, but the hour had come when their knell was to strike.
He thrust out and seized the eager hand of his younger brother, which he pressed to his lips. Nor was Hugh at all surprised to see him burst into tears, as though the long-pent-up emotions had suddenly swept everything before them.
“Oh! what wouldn’t I give to be able to see her again!” he cried. “No fellow ever had a better mother than she always was to me; and how basely I treated her. I’ve been sorry so many times, but in shame I didn’t dare write to her. And so it’s to my own brother Gus I owe my life, do I? Well, it was worth coming all the way from the West to learn that they do still think of me at home—some of them.”
He would not let go of the hand he had taken. Hugh and the others were intensely interested in everything that was said, though the scout master had a little suspicion that it might not be the best thing they could do to let Sam excite himself so much in his present weakened condition.
“Oh! no danger of his feeling it,” Arthur told him when he mentioned something of his fears in this respect. “He’s buoyed up now by a new hope that’s going to do more toward bringing him around than all the cordials or broths he could take. See how the color’s come to his face, will you? And his eyes fairly sparkle. Joy seldom kills, you must know, Hugh. Sam is already beginning to get glimpses of a new life. It’s all right, and don’t stop Gus from talking all he wants to about home and mother. He knows what he was sent up here to do. It’s all for a purpose.”
“We’d about given up hope of hearing from you again, Sam,” Gus was saying. “It must have been all of three years since you wrote that last letter in which you said you meant to try your luck up in Alaska. Day after day, and month after month, mother would watch for the mails until even her dear heart grew sick with the suspense. Why didn’t you let her hear from you once in months, Sam?”
“I was a wretch not to do it,” admitted the other, contritely; “but I had vowed I wouldn’t let any of the home folks hear from me again until I had won out, conquered my evil nature, and actually done something to show father I wasn’t the good-for-nothing he called me. So I made my way to the mines up in Alaska, and began work at the bottom. In a year I bought a piece of ground of my own, a mine that was supposed to be played out. Then later on I struck it rich, and began to hug myself in thinking how I would appear before you all a wealthy man. Then there came a claimant for my property. The court decided against me, and I lost all I had believed I owned. I fell sick after that, and it was an uphill fight; finally I gave it all up and came back to the States as poorly off as I started.”
Sam looked very dejected when he reached this point in his brief story. Gus, however, seemed to see the circumstance in a different light.
“But you did stick at it as long as any fellow could, you see, Sam,” he hurriedly observed, with a touch of pride in his voice. “That shows you’ve got it in you to do the right thing when you get another chance. Mother wants to see you. She has something to give you, Sam, money that will start you going in some business, away from Oakvale. She has saved it dollar by dollar, doing without things she had expected to buy for herself. Oh! you ought to buckle down and make a man of yourself for her sake, Sam—our mother!”
“I can, and I will, Gus,” said the other, firmly. “I told you I’d managed to throw off my bad habits, and there’s no danger of them ever getting the better of me again. If I have just one more chance to make good you’ll see how I can lie awake nights trying to get there. I’d give ten years of my life just to prove to father that I had it in me to do things worth while.”
Gus looked around toward the others. His eyes were moist, and it was evident that the boy was laboring under a tremendous strain. Still, through it all he could give Hugh a happy smile.
“Tell him what he needs to do to get there, Hugh,” he pleaded. “You can do it better than any one else I know. Things seem to be working out right, don’t they, Hugh, when just a little while ago it looked so terribly gloomy?”
“They’re going to get just where you and your mother have been hoping would be the case, Gus,” said Hugh. “And I must say that it would spur almost any sort of a fellow on to doing his level best if he had such a loyal mother as you’ve got, Sam. As for telling you what’s best to do, what’s the use, when you know deep down in your heart there’s only one way you can repay her for all her love and prayers. I firmly believe you will make good, Sam Merrivale, and if I can do anything to help out, you can count on my services. Gus is a particular chum of ours, and scouts always stand up for each other, you know.”
Sam was nearly overcome at such hearty offers of assistance.
“I’m going to get well in a hurry, don’t you see?” he told them. “Why, even now I feel a thousand per cent better than I did before I skipped out of this place when Casey told me we’d have to leave as there was danger staying here. By the time you’re ready to go back home I’ll be fit to meet my mother and tackle anything she wants me to do so as to wipe out the shame I’ve brought on her.”
Billy now came up bearing the big tin cup again.
“About time he had the second dose, I reckon, Doc?” he asked Arthur, and upon that worthy nodding his head in the affirmative the good-natured cook guided the drinking vessel to the lips of the repentant boy lying there.
He drank every drop of the contents, and seemed to relish it amazingly.
“You’re all so good to me, fellows!” he said, after draining the cup to the very dregs. “It’s almost like getting back home again to meet Oakvale boys up here, and my own brother Gus among the lot. I guess it must have been my good angel that guided me to this place, where I knew we’d find shelter; for I thought father’s loggers would be working here, and I might get a job on the sly, till I could communicate with my mother. Oh! I’ll never stop being thankful it’s all come out as it has.”
“There’s something I ought to tell you, Sam,” remarked Gus, a little later, after some of the excitement had worn away, and they could manage to sit or lie around enjoying the cheery fire, and thanking their lucky stars, as Billy said, that the fates allowed them to be so comfortable when it was getting bitter cold outside with a shift of wind into the northwest.
The prodigal looked anxious upon hearing his brother say that.
“Nothing bad, I hope, Gus?” he observed.
“You must settle that with yourself,” the other replied, “after you’ve heard what I say. But, Sam, I’ve got some reason to believe father is beginning to feel sorry for what he did years ago. You know he’s got an iron will, and even mother is afraid to stir him up. But just the other day something happened that made me think he’s breaking down.”
“Tell me, Gus, please tell me!” urged Sam, eagerly.
“Why, it happened this way, you see,” resumed the other, quickly. “I was passing the door of the library and chanced to look in just in time to see father put something down in the corner of the big secretary that stands there, you remember, Sam. He started to blow his nose, too, and turned his back on me; but I give you my word, Sam, when I saw him a few minutes later his eyes were red!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sam, with his face as tense as it could well be.
“That made me mighty curious, I tell you,” Gus went on to say, “and when I had a half-decent chance I just slipped into the library and looked to see what it was father had been staring at when I startled him. Sam, would you believe it, I found that little picture of you there, that mother had in a gilt frame, and kept on the parlor mantel up to the time you went away!”
Sam gave a low bubbling cry. He was evidently greatly shaken by this intelligence, the very first news he had received to show that, after all, the suffering had not fallen to himself and his mother alone.
“So that’s one reason why mother, when she heard that you had been seen here, and were sick, sent me up to find you, because we both believe father is weakening. He isn’t the same man he used to be, Sam. His shoulders are bowed these days, and he hasn’t much to say to anybody. He was always a proud man, you remember, and I guess he hates to admit that he was harsh and unforgiving when he sent you away from home; but I do honestly believe, Sam, he’s near the turning point now. A little thing would make him break down.”
Hugh could not help feeling pleased. Indeed, looking backward to many things that had happened in his past he could not think of any that gave him greater reason for thankfulness than the fact of his agreeing to accompany Gus on what to some might have seemed like a wild-goose errand into these woods.
“We expect to stay up here a few days, you see, Sam,” he explained, as they sat there and talked of many things that interested them all. “By the time we’re ready to fold up our blankets and start in the big seven-passenger car back home, you’ll be fit to travel. By then you can have made your plans, just what you expect to do, though the chief thing, I expect, will be to meet that good mother of yours, and fill her brave heart with new hope.”
“I tell you, Hugh, and the rest of you good fellows,” said Sam, “the minutes are going to drag like lead to me till the time comes when I can feel her arms about my neck again. Oh! none of you can ever understand what it means to a fellow to know that thousands of miles, yes, and something worse than that even, stands between him and his mother. How many nights I’ve dreamed I saw her, only to wake up and realize the terrible truth! A stronger hand than my own has guided me here, I honestly and truly believe.”
“Oh! I nearly forgot something else I meant to tell you, Sam!” exclaimed Gus just then, “not that it’s a matter of any particular importance, you see, but then, Mr. Jones, the post master, called me into his office to show it to me, and ask if I knew whether you expected to be back home soon. You see, he knows a little about what happened years ago, though few people in Oakvale do.”
“Why, what did he have to show you that was for me?” asked Sam, apparently puzzled to understand it all.
“It was a letter that had come by registered mail,” explained Gus, smiling fondly at his brother.
“For me, do you mean?” demanded the other.
“Yes, and from Alaska, too,” he was told. “I already knew that you had been seen near the camp up here, but I didn’t want to tell Mr. Jones that. So I just said it was possible you might be dropping in to sign for that letter yourself before a great while, if so, would he hold it for you, which he said he would, and gave me to understand he meant to keep it quiet.”
“A letter registered, and from Alaska,” Sam went on to say as though to himself. “That’s a queer thing. Few people up there knew that I came from Oakvale in this far Eastern State. I wonder who could have sent it?”
“Oh! as a scout,” Gus proudly told him, “who has been taught the value of observing things, I made sure to notice that up in the corner there was a printed slip that read this way: ‘Jenkins and Pratt, Attorneys, Nome, Alaska.’ Now, may be that’ll give you a clue to the senders, Sam.”
“It certainly does, Gus, thanks to your scout tactics,” the other quickly responded. “That was the name of the law firm I employed while fighting for my title to that mine that swamped me. I wonder what they are writing to me about. The chances are, though, they find they didn’t charge me enough for their services, and this is an extra bill they want me to pay.”
“Oh! perhaps they’re sending you some good news, Sam!” suggested Gus, as a sudden wild hope possessed him. “It would be just like it to have things take a turn up there, and that mine come back to you again.”
“No such good luck, I’m afraid,” remarked Sam, shaking his head skeptically. “I’ve been up against hard luck all my life, you see. Everything goes crooked with a fellow who’s gone and made a mess of his prospects like I did.”
“But you’ve reached the turn of the lane, Sam, you see,” ventured the other. “From now on things are going to right-about face, and be just the opposite from what they used to strike you. Once the tide of good luck sets in there’s no telling what will happen. Say what you will, I’m going to hope it’s that way.”
They sat there and talked for a long time afterwards. Indeed all of them were so excited that it was with considerable difficulty that Hugh could coax them to consider going to bed.
Before they retired he had some of the wood that had been taken into the cabin placed conveniently so that when any one chanced to awaken during the night it would be a simple matter to step over and cast a log on the fire. There would apparently be more or less need of extra warmth in the bunk-house before dawn came, what with the storm changing its course and bringing the bitter breath of winter out of the great Northwest.
They were short in blankets, but then Hugh expected to make himself comfortable with some of the bags they had found in the place, left behind by the loggers, as well as some extra clothes he had along with him. Sam had been given Hugh’s covering, and Gus would have forced the scout master to accept his blanket only he found himself up against a wall of adamant when he tried that sort of thing. In some matters Hugh could be very stubborn.
“This is an old story for me, Gus,” the scout master had told him convincingly, as he shook his head and pushed the proffered blanket back into the other’s hands. “In fact, to tell you the truth, I rather enjoy being put to the test this way, and having to hustle for bed clothes. I’ll keep warm enough, never fear; and besides, we mean to have a fire all night, so there you are. Thanks just the same, but it’s impossible, Gus. So stow yourself away in one of the bunks closest to the fire, and go to sleep happier than you’ve been this many a day.”
“I guess I will, Hugh,” admitted Gus, smiling at the other with eyes that sparkled as though they contained dewdrops, “because I’ll be dreaming of her, and how glad she’ll be when she knows I’ve succeeded in the mission she entrusted to my hands, thanks to the help of my chums.”
“Yes,” said the scout master, with a hand on the shoulder of Gus, “and depend on it, old fellow, before many moons pass by I’m going to see to it that your name is written on the Roll of Honor they keep at scout headquarters for all those who save human life at the risk of their own. You’re entitled to wear a medal on your coat for what you’ve done this night, if any of us won the honor.” And doubtless Gus Merrivale would sleep all the sounder that night on account of knowing that the ambition he had so long cherished above all other scout aims was in a fair way of being realized at last.
The last thing before crawling under his blanket, Arthur, the “seasoned weather-sharp” of the troop, had called the attention of his mates to the fact that, just as he had predicted, the wind was commencing to come out of the Northwest, so that the rain that had been blown so wildly before the gale had already, no doubt, commenced to turn into sleet.
“We’re going to have the queerest Thanksgiving ever heard of in this section of the country,” Arthur had said. “Mark my words if it doesn’t change into a regular baby blizzard. Oakvale fellows won’t want to bother much with any football this year, if I know what’s what.”
All night long the wind whistled and moaned, and even howled at times around the corners of the bunk-house. Inside, it was fairly cheerful, for many times did Hugh get up and renew the fire which ate up the fuel at an alarming rate, as always happens when the wind blows at a gale. Finally, when morning came, and there were heard sounds to indicate that some of the sleepers had awakened, the place felt pretty cold. That was remedied, however, after the fire had been built up so that it fairly roared.
No sooner was Gus up than he went to where his brother lay.
“How are you feeling, Sam?” he asked, upon discovering that the other was awake.
“I hardly know yet,” came the reply. “I reckon I’ll be weak for a short spell, but that doctor of yours has done me heaps of good, and you can wager I’m bound to pull through all right. I’ve got a new lease of life, Gus, since you told me what you did about father. I’m crazy to see mother, and little baby sister Amy, too.”
Gus laughed. He was feeling ever so much more light-hearted himself, now that things had turned out so well.
“You forget that nearly five years have gone past since you were home, Sam,” he went on to say. “Amy isn’t a baby any longer, but the prettiest little girl the sun ever shone on. Wait till you see her, that’s all. She’s as sweet as she is pretty, which is the best part of it all. We worship her as if she might be a fairy queen in our house.”
Sam thereupon gave a half groan.
“I guess it goes without saying,” he remarked, sadly, “that all the badness in the Merrivale family was concentrated in me. Oh! how bitterly I’ve repented some of the mean things I did in those wild days; and nearly broke my mother’s heart. I’ve tried again and again to lay all the blame on father for being so strict; but, Gus, I know just as well as anything that I was at fault, too. But I’m going to make it all up, if I live long enough.”
Breakfast was eaten amidst considerable merriment. Everybody seemed to be quite cheerful, considering the fact that they were snowbound on the one great day of the fall which all true Americans celebrate at home or abroad, the Thanksgiving handed down from the Pilgrim Fathers.
“There’s something that’s bothering me,” remarked Billy, “and that’s grub!”
“What about it?” demanded Arthur. “So far as I can see it’s just prime, and as good as anything we ever packed into camp. Please put a couple of pieces of that bacon on my pannikin, will you, Hugh? It certainly goes to the spot. I never smell bacon or ham cooking at home but what my mind goes out to camp life. They seem, as Billy here would say, intimately connected.”
“Oh! the quality is gilt-edged,” the fat scout hastened to admit. “It’s the quantity that’s bothering me. Look what a hole we’ve made already in our stack, will you? Where will we be three days from now, tell me?”
Hugh laughed at hearing this complaint, because it was not the first time by any means that he had listened to Billy holding forth along similar lines.
“Oh! no use borrowing trouble, Billy,” he said, consolingly. “Don’t cross a bridge before you come to it, as lots of people do. There are several remedies to your disease. If necessary we can cut our outing short and speed back home in the big auto. Then again, if we conclude to stay, a couple of us can scour the country around this section, and visit several farm houses, where money will talk, and buy all the eggs and chickens we want. It’s all right, Billy, make your mind up to that.”
As the morning advanced none of them cared to stay outdoors more than was absolutely necessary, so keen was the wind. One by one they took turns wielding the camp ax, and bringing in stacks of wood.
Billy, remembering the day, laid out quite an extensive menu for Thanksgiving dinner, nor did he have any trouble about finding plenty of recruits ready to assist in peeling potatoes and doing the other chores.
“I did hope,” he announced, when asking their opinion of his intended bill of fare, “that somebody’d be smart enough to bag a plump gobbler. It would have been a splendid thing to grace the head of the table. But let’s be thankful we’ve got what might be called the poor man’s turkey—pork. That half ham is going to take the place of the National bird for this once. First time, though, since I was knee-high to a duck that I haven’t eaten real turkey on Thanksgiving.”
“There must always be a first time, Billy,” was Arthur’s consoling remark.
They put in most of the morning getting ready for the dinner. Billy fairly outdid all his previous efforts along the line of preparing a grand feast. He had looked ahead when laying in his stock of edibles, as was apparent when the meal finally was placed on the table.
The bill of fare Billy had written out and placed beside every tin pannikin was as follows:
Who cared because there was no table cloth, and that the dishes were of tin or granite or aluminum? What did it matter if the supply was so limited that often during the meal some one had to scurry over and do a little dishwashing before he could take the next course?
The ham was unbeatable, the fish just prime, the vegetables as “good as mother herself could have prepared them,” so they all admitted, and even the pumpkin pies that dear old Billy had smuggled into camp so carefully without any of the others knowing about it, came through in pretty good shape. The fact that they were broken a little mattered nothing to those boys who ate and ate until they could only look helplessly at one another, and wonder how under the sun they could ever dream of wanting anything more for forty-eight hours.
Perhaps that was one of the biggest events in Casey’s whole life. It must have been many a year since he had filled himself with such a choice collection of good things. Possibly it brought back memories that had almost faded from the mind of the old tramp, for to be sure he had once been a boy, and lived upon a farm. During the remainder of that whole day Casey was unusually quiet. When Sam asked him if he felt ill he shook his head and grinned, and simply said he was resurrecting dead recollections that he had never thought would rise again to haunt him.
Hugh only hoped they might continue to pester the old chap until finally he decided to give up this wandering life, and go back to see if any of his own kindred were still alive.
Casey did not intend going to town with them. They could guess why, for he as much as admitted that in times past he had been guilty of appropriating certain things to which he had no legal claim; and there was always a haunting fear in the mind of the old tramp that he was going to be jailed for these petty acts.
Sam was improving rapidly. Indeed, the fact was, it would have been most singular if such had not proved to be the case—with those merry fellows in his company to keep him laughing much of the time, so that his troubles fell from him very much as water does from a duck’s back.
Occasionally during that day he and Gus and Hugh talked matters over. Something in the shape of a plan of campaign was arranged, whereby Sam might in good time meet his devoted mother, and something be done looking toward a reconciliation with the stern father. So Sam declared, when night again drew near, that he believed he was far along the road to full recovery.
The rest of their stay in the lumber camp passed away without any further remarkable occurrence. It seemed as though after that big blow the weather had cleared for a long spell, although remaining quite cold. Hugh took the gun and did a little hunting just to please the insistent Billy, who was still clamorous for a turkey, and would not be happy until they had at least done their part toward procuring one.
Sure enough Hugh did succeed in bagging a gobbler, and as it turned out to be a young and tender bird they did enjoy a turkey dinner after all. Better late than never, as Billy told them, after he had succeeded in roasting the turkey by means of a rude spit before the fire, which had to be turned from time to time until Billy’s arms ached and his round face rivalled the setting sun in color.