"Oh, I don"t want you to urge the Dalzells very hard, dad. I"m not just asking that. But I think, if you talk it over with them, perhaps----"
"It"s a queer bit of business for me," remarked Mr. Prescott.
"But will you go, Dad? Please."
"Yes," agreed Mr. Prescott very reluctantly.
"Can you--can you just as easily go soon, dad?"
"Ye-es. I"ll go now. It"s such a queer piece of business that I shall be thankful when I have it over with."
"And you"ll say the best word you can think of, won"t you?"
"If you don"t stop soon, young man, I may change my mind and back out altogether."
But d.i.c.k, who knew well enough that his father"s promise, once given, was never gone back on, thanked him and then danced joyously out into the street again.
"What was the matter, d.i.c.k?" asked Tom Reade, curiously, when he rejoined his chums. "Did you forget something?"
"There was something I wanted to talk to dad about," responded d.i.c.k evasively.
"What----" began Dan, without an inkling of a true guess.
"Be still, you Danny boy," ordered Dave Darrin bluntly. "The family affairs of the Prescotts should be no concern of yours."
Though, very much to his regret, d.i.c.k did not possess a watch, he nevertheless managed to keep very good track of the time. Something more than an hour later he led the fellows around to his own corner. He was just in time to see Mr. Prescott returning.
"You stay here a minute," young Prescott directed, then set off at a run to join his father.
"Did you--did you----" he panted, as he reached his parent.
"Yes," replied the head of the family, a bit stiffly. "I made a nuisance of myself over at the Dalzells. I talked and talked. They talked, too, and both Mr. and Mrs. Dalzell asked me if I thought it at all safe to let such a busy little gang of hooligans as you boys go off on such an expedition. All I could say was to point out the fact that I had given you leave. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Dalzell gave their consent to Dan"s going.
So now I hope you"re satisfied."
"Satisfied? Oh, dad, thank you! This is the best Christmas ever. Thank you! Whoop!"
With that young Prescott executed an about-face and went charging back to where he had left his chums.
"Are you crazy?" demanded Dan curiously.
"No; but you"ll be, in a minute. Dad went over to see your folks, and they"ve given in. You"re to go with us."
CHAPTER VI
THE LOG CABIN"S TELLTALE HEARTH
"Have we got everything?" demanded Tom Reade anxiously.
"I think so," nodded d.i.c.k.
"No one ever yet started off on any big jaunt without forgetting something, you know," Greg explained.
"Well, let every fellow take a look around and see if he can find anything that we ought to have, and haven"t," suggested d.i.c.k.
Six pairs of eyes did some anxious searching.
It was nearly ten o"clock on the morning after Christmas. d.i.c.k & Co.
stood in Miller"s grocery store, having mounted guard over an extensive supply of groceries, meat and personal belongings. What a stack of stuff there was!
d.i.c.k and Dave had been delegated to do the buying. Starting with a capital of thirty dollars, they had expended a little more than nineteen dollars with the butcher and grocer. Joe Miller, the grocer"s son, had gone to hitch up a pair of horses to a roomy truck wagon. Their conveyance to camp, some twelve miles distant, was to cost them four dollars, and Miller had made a low price at that. Dave, as the treasurer of the outfit, now had nearly seven dollars left, but of this, four would be required to pay Joe Miller for the return trip.
In addition to food supplies, each of the six boys had brought along underclothing, shirts and an extra pair of shoes. These personal belongings were packed in bags.
Then, besides, each boy had a roll of bedding--a pillow, sheets and old blankets and comforters for each. There were also, either in bedding rolls or in bags, some few toilet articles. There was also a box of old kitchen ware. Tom Reade had brought a Rochester lamp; Greg and Dan had contributed lanterns and d.i.c.k a dark lantern.
"I see one thing we haven"t got, but ought to have," said Harry Hazelton to d.i.c.k.
"What"s that?" asked the latter.
"A shotgun. Joe Miller has a good one, and I know he"d lend it to us if we asked him."
"We won"t ask him," d.i.c.k replied.
"Now, why not? We have money enough so we can afford to buy some sh.e.l.ls, and----"
"Harry, did you tell your folks you expected there"d be a shotgun along on this trip?"
""Course not. I didn"t know there would be one."
"Do you think your folks would have let you come if they had thought of such a thing?"
"Maybe not. But they didn"t say a word against our having one."
"Harry, if our parents were to hear that we had taken a shotgun along they"d be worried to death," said d.i.c.k gravely.
"Humph! We"re old enough to manage a gun," remonstrated Hazelton.
"Perhaps we are, but it would worry our home folks just the same. Boys are always believed to be careless with firearms. We don"t want any shotgun along, and then we won"t have any need to be sorry about it afterwards."
"But there"ll be rabbits and other game that we might get."
"Dave has brought his air-rifle, and has plenty of "pills" for it. And Tom brought along his bow and half a dozen arrows. We can take care of the little game we may see."
"That"s right," broke in Dave, who had been listening. "If we were fools enough to take along a shotgun it"d be many a day before we"d get leave to go on another camping jaunt."