“Well, we’ll soon be at Wilden,” remarked Tom, as the day was drawing to a close.

“Where are we going to stop?” asked Jack.

“At a hotel, of course,” put in Bert.

“Hotel nothing!” exclaimed Tom. “In the first place there isn’t any, and in the second place mother’s friend, Mrs. Henderson, would feel hurt if we didn’t put up at her house. She wrote specially to invite us when she heard we were going camping near Lake Woonset. So we’ll go there, and proceed to make ourselves at home.”

The train pulled into a station a few miles below Wilden, and to the surprise of Tom and his chums, Sam Heller and his crony got off. Our friends watched them.

“What do you know about that!” exclaimed Jack, as he leaned out of a window to look. “The expressman is pulling off some tents and other camping stuff, and Sam is telling him where to place it. Say, those fellows are going camping after all their high-flown talk about a hotel, and[40] I’ll wager we run across them again before the summer’s over!”

[40]

“I shouldn’t wonder,” spoke Tom. “No matter, we’ll have a good time anyhow. We’d better be getting ready to leave on our own hook.”

As the train pulled out again our friends saw Sam and Nick arranging their tent and baggage, but the two did not look up at their former schoolmates.

Wilden was soon reached, and as Tom was making inquiries of the freight agent as to whether or not his boat had arrived a man stepped up and greeted our hero.

“Isn’t this Tom Fairfield, and his camping chums?” he asked pleasantly.

“It is, and you—”

“I’m Mr. Amos Henderson. My wife used to go to school with your mother, and when Sallie—that’s my wife—heard you were coming up here she got all ready for you. She sent me down to the station to bring you up to the house. I said I didn’t think I’d know you, but land shucks! Sallie said that didn’t matter. She told me to pick out four boys, and they’d be sure to be the right ones.

“And I did, by gum! Though it wasn’t a hard matter, seeing as how you’re the only ones who got off the train. But come on now, supper’s waiting, and Sallie won’t like it to get cold.”

Tom and his chums, pleased with their 

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