tner.

"This is _your_ job," his friend would say; "all I'm doing is helping;
sort of a silent partner, as you might say."

But for all that he worked like a slave, relieving Tom of the heavier
work, and at night he was dog tired, as he admitted himself. Thus the
work went on, and with the help of his new friend, Tom began to see
light through the darkness. "We'll get her finished or bust a trace,"
Barnard said. They bunked together in one of the old cabins and Tom
enjoyed the isolation and the pioneer character of their task. Relieved
of the tremendous strain of lifting the logs alone, his shoulder
regained some of its former strength and toughness, and the confidence
of success in time cheered him no less than did the amusing and
sprightly talk of his friend.

Barnard had not been there two days when his thoughtfulness relieved Tom
of one of the daily tasks which had taken much time from his work. This
was to follow the trail down the hillside and through the woods to where
it ran into the public road and wait there for the mail wagon to pass
and get the letters. "I'll take care of that," he said, as soon as Tom
answered his inquiry as to how mail was received at camp, "don't you
worry. I have to have my little hike every day."

There was quite an accumulation of mail when Uncle Jeb, looking strange
and laughable in his civilized clothes, as Barnard called them, arrived
on Saturday morning. The bus, which brought him up from Catskill,
brought also the advance guard of the scout army that would shortly
over-run the camp.

These dozen or so boys and Uncle Jeb strolled up to visit the camp on
the hill, and Uncle Jeb, as usual, expressed no surprise at finding that
Tom's visitor had come. "Glad ter see yer," he said; "yer seem like a
couple of Robinson Crusoes up here. Glad ter see yer givin' Tommy a
hand."

"I got a right to say he's my visitor, haven't I?" Tom asked, without
any attempt at hinting. "'Cause I knew him, as you might say, over in
France. We catch fish in the brook and we don't use the camp stores
much."

"Wall, naow, I wouldn' call this bein' in the camp at all; not yet,
leastways," Uncle Jeb said, including the stranger in his shrewd,
friendly glance. "Tommy, here, is a privileged character, as the feller
says. En your troop's coming later, hain't they? I reckon we won't put
you down on the books. You jes stay here with Tommy till he gets his
chore done. You're visitin' him ez I see it. Nobody's