Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/335

 the cruelest blow of all. “It’s all right. You’ve done fine. Now try to go to sleep.”

“Bub Thomas, if you keep on talking in that creepy tone I will go insane in earnest,” snapped Stanley. “I’m not mad, you silly. I was trying to tell you what I found.”

“Honest, Stan, do you mean it?” exclaimed Bub.

“I tell you yes, a hundred times, yes,” repeated Stanley, now becoming irritated.

“Then you’ve made your everlasting fortune,” announced Bub in an awed voice.

“If there is a fortune in it you and Abner and Charlie are equal partners,” said Stanley sharply.

“But we didn’t find it?”

“Well, you found me, didn’t you? Now keep still while I tell you. For if anything should happen to me and you get back you can tell Hatton.”

He then proceeded to give Bub a full account of his adventure with the beech tree. The thing that impressed Bub the most was Stanley’s forethought in replacing the bark instead of bringing it into camp.

“For if you had brought that with you the gang would have killed us off hand,” be declared firmly.