before daybreak this morning, and brought a tent along with them, which they have pitched just back of that little peninsula; and they haven’t any guide, because they want to attend to their own cooking and everything, and the man who brought the tent and other things has gone back. They are going to live there just like real backwoodsmen, and they have a boat of their own, which is to be brought up from the bottom of the lake somewhere—I mean from the lower end of the lake. And, Aunt Harriet, may I speak to you a moment?”
With this the young woman drew Mrs. Archibald aside, and in a low voice asked if she thought it would be out of the way to invite the two young men to take breakfast with them, as it was not likely they had all their cooking things in order so early.
Five people sat down to breakfast under the great oak-tree, and it was a lively meal. Mr. Archibald’s mental disquiet, in which were now apparent some elements of resentment, had not subsided, but the state of his mind did not show itself in his demeanor, and he could not help feeling pleased to see that his wife was in better spirits. He had always known that she liked company.
After breakfast he took Matlack aside. “I don’t understand this business,” said he. “When I hired this camp I supposed we were to have it to ourselves; but if there are other camps jammed close against it we may be in the midst of a great public picnic before a week is out.”
“Oh, that camp over there isn’t much of a camp,” replied the guide. “The fact is, it is only the tail end of a camp, and I don’t suppose Peter Sadler thought anybody would be likely to take it just now, and so didn’t think it worth while to speak of it. Of course it’s jammed up against this one, as you say; but then the people in one camp haven’t the right to cross the line into another camp if the people in the other camp don’t want them to.”
“Line!” said Mr. Archibald. “It is absurd to think of lines in a place like this. And I have no intention of making myself disagreeable by ordering people off my premises. But I would like to know if there is another camp three hundred feet on this side of our cabin, or three hundred feet back of it.”
“No, sir,” said Matlack, speaking promptly; “there isn’t another camp between this and the lower end of the lake. There’s a big one there, and it’s taken; but the people aren’t coming until next month.”
“If a larger party had taken Camp Roy,” said Mr. Archibald to his wife a little later, “I should not mind it so much. But two young men! I do not like it.”
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