Part 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER VIII.

GWEN.

Bill Tinsley was as keen on the camp building plan as Lewis Somerville had said he would be.

”Sleeping on my arms,” was his telegram in answer to the letter he got from Lewis, a letter with R. S. V. P. P. D. Q. plainly marked on the envelope.

”Good old Bill! I almost knew he would tumble at the chance. All of you will like Bill, I know.”

”What does he mean by sleeping on his arms?” asked Lucy. ”I should think it would make him awfully stiff.”

”Oh, that means ready to go at a moment's notice. I bet his kit is packed now.”

Mr. Lane and d.i.c.k had worked hard on the plans for the camp and had them ready when the would-be builder called for them. Then Mr. Lane and Lewis made a flying trip to Greendale to look into the lay of the land and to decide on a site for the dining pavilion. It was a spot about one hundred yards from the log cabin, built by the aforesaid sick Englishman, that seemed to them to be intended for just their purpose.

It was a hollowed out place in the mountain side, not far from the summit, and four great pine trees formed an almost perfect rectangle of forty by twenty-five feet. In the centre stood a n.o.ble tulip poplar.

”Pity to sacrifice him,” said Bill Tinsley, whom they had picked up at Charlottesville on their way to Greendale. Bill was a youth of few words but of frequent mirth expressed in uncontrollable fits of laughter that nothing could stop, not even being s.h.i.+pped from West Point. It was this very laugh that had betrayed the hazers. If Bill had only been able to hold in that guffaw of his they would never have been caught. His laugh was unmistakable and through it the whole crowd of wrongdoers was nabbed, poor Lewis along with them although he was innocent.

”No more to blame for laughing than a lightning bug for s.h.i.+ning,” he had declared to Lewis; ”but I wish I had died before I got you into this, old fellow.”

”Well, it can't be helped, but I bet you will be laughing on the other side of your face before you know it.”

The youths had remained fast friends and now that this chance had come for them to be of service and to use the surplus energy that was stored up in their splendidly developed muscles, they were happy at the prospect of being together again.

Mr. Lane took careful measurements and adapted his plans so as to utilize the four trees as natural posts and the great tulip poplar as a support for the roof. Under the pavilion the s.p.a.ce was to be made into kitchen and store room. Some little excavating would be necessary for this as measurements showed that one edge of the pavilion would rest almost on the mountain side while the other stood ten feet from the ground.

”I am trying to spare you fellows all the excavating possible, as that is the tedious and uninteresting part of building,” explained Mr. Lane.

”Oh, we can shovel that little pile of dirt away in no time,” declared Lewis, feeling his muscles twitch with joy at the prospect of removing mountains. Mr. Lane smiled, knowing full well that it was at least no mole hill they were to tackle.

Within a week after Mr. and Mrs. Carter had sailed on their health-seeking voyage, Lewis and his chum were _en route_ for Greendale, all of the lumber for their undertaking ordered and their tools sent on ahead by freight. Bill had gone to Richmond, ostensibly to consult a dentist, but in reality to see the Carter girls, who had aroused in him a great curiosity.

”They must be some girls,” had been his laconic remark.

”So they are, the very best fun you ever saw,” Lewis had a.s.sured him.

”They took this thing of waking up and finding themselves poor a great deal better than you and I did waking up and finding ourselves nothing but civilians when we had expected to be major generals, at least.”

The Carter girls had one and all liked Bill, when Lewis took him to call on them the evening of his arrival in Richmond.

”There is something so frank and open in his countenance,” said Helen.

”His mouth!” drawled Nan. ”Did you ever see or hear such a laugh?”

”He is a great deal nicer than your old Dr. Wright, who looks as though it would take an operation on his risibles to get a laugh out of him.”

Bill had offered the services of a battered Ford car he had in Charlottesville as pack mule for the camp and it was joyfully accepted.

He and Lewis stopped in Charlottesville on their way to Greendale and got the tried old car, making the last leg of their trip in it.