Ned lapsed into silence. It was no use; the conversation had ended as he had expected. He had only proved that he knew his father much better than Hal did.
Yet, although Hal had failed on one tack, it was he who really brought the rescue, after all. When, within an hour, Ned reported to him the failure of plans for a truce, Hal thought an instant, and suddenly said:
"I tell you! I'll come down early to-morrow morning, and we'll jump into that wood and not stop 'til it's finished!"
And to their great relief and no doubt to the surprise of the wood, the last slab had been laid in place before noon of the next day!
They spent that afternoon collecting their camping outfit.
This consisted of blankets and provisions, mainly, although Mrs. Miller made Ned, to his disgust, take a few extra articles of clothes. Mothers seem unable to grasp how little a boy needs, in that line, when camping in summer!
They gaily trundled a full wheelbarrow-load of stuff down to the Diamond Jo warehouse; then they returned up-town to buy a lot of canned goods, and coffee and sugar, with which to eke out the bread and potatoes and onions, etc., furnished by the home larders.
These store things also having been wheeled to the warehouse, nothing now was left to do but to wait until morning.
"Why, Ned--aren't you going to have a tent?" exclaimed his mother, shocked.
"Of course not!" snorted Ned, in disdain. "There's a shed we can go under if it rains."
Mrs. Miller, in dismay, broke the news to her husband, but he merely laughed, and said, patting her shoulder:
"It won't hurt them any. When they get enough they can come home."
"It won't hurt them any," was a favorite remark of Mr. Miller's. He had great faith in the happy-go-lucky ways of the average healthy boy, and his theory rarely was at fault.
But Mrs. Miller, not yet at ease, continued to hover around Ned, and ask him other anxious questions which seemed to him very foolish, but which to her seemed quite natural.
"Neddie, I really don't believe you're going to have plenty to eat!" she asserted.
"With two trot-lines? My, yes!" assured Ned. "Why, we can live on just fish!"
His words had such a ring of confidence that his mother--although "trot-lines" was a complete mystery to her--accepted them, and tried not to worry.