“Sure I will,” he promised, and she had to be content with that.

Later, when Tom told Jack and Bert about the news from the place where they were going camping, Jack said:

“I wonder if it could have been Mr. Skeel who bothered the old man?”

“It can’t be,” declared Bert. “Why he’s hardly up there yet.”

“He might be,” spoke Jack. “If he is, and he hears anything about treasure, I’ll wager that he gets after it. And he’ll make trouble whereever he goes—he’s that way.”

“He sure is,” agreed Tom, thinking of how the former professor had hidden away a secret supply of food and drink when the others were trying to save themselves from starvation in the lifeboat.

“Well, anyhow, we don’t need to worry,” said Dick, who had come over to Tom’s house to have a last talk before the start in the morning.

“That’s right,” agreed Tom. “Now let’s go over everything, and see what we’ve forgotten.”

This took them the best part of the evening, and having found that they had omitted a few things, they packed them into their grips and went to bed, Dick promising to come over early in the morning to go with the three chums to the train which they were all to take to reach Wilden.

[33]

[33]

Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield went to the station with the boys. The baggage was checked, and Tom had to spend some time saying good-bye to a number of his town chums.

“Hey, wish you’d take me along,” said Dent Wilcox, as he shuffled along the depot platform. He seemed to have forgotten his little feeling against Tom for not taking him in the motorboat, the day our hero got the letter from his chum. “Can’t you take me, Tom?”

“I might if you’d promise to chop all the wood, go for all the water, do the cooking, wash the dishes, make the beds, sweep up, and run for gasolene.”

“Huh!” exclaimed Dent, looking for a place to sit down. “I guess I don’t want to go.”

“And we don’t want you,” spoke Tom in a low voice.

There was a toot of the whistle, a puffing of smoke, and the train that was to take our lads to camp, pulled in. The last good-byes were said, Mrs. 

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