Four in Camp: A Story of Summer Adventures in the New Hampshire Woods

“Just a moment, please,” he said. “I was there, Mr. Downer, and saw it – ”

“Well, so was I there!” cried the Wickasaw catcher and captain angrily. “I tell you I caught him two feet off base!”

“That’s right!” cried the pitcher.

“I was there and saw it,” repeated Bob dryly. “The runner was out.”

There was an instant of silence during which the Wickasaw players observed the captain of the rival team as though they thought he had gone suddenly insane. Then:

“Their own captain says he was out!” exclaimed the pitcher, turning eagerly to the umpire, “and if he acknowledges it – ”

“I’m satisfied,” responded Mr. Downer, with a smile. “Out at the plate!”

Almost an hour later Chicora, cheering as though after a victory, steamed home in the launch or trudged back through the woods, while Wickasaw, apparently no less elated, took herself off across the lake to Bear Island. It was almost dark. The game had come to an end after thirteen innings with the score 6 to 6. Time and again Chicora had placed men on bases only to have them left there. For five innings Nelson had held the opponents down to a handful of scratch hits, none of which yielded a score. It had been a hard and well-fought contest and only darkness had brought it to a close. Although the score-book, sedulously guarded by the “Babe,” pronounced the game a tie, yet there were many among those that knew how the eighth inning had ended who credited a victory – and a gorgeous one – to Chicora. Scores do not always tell the whole story.

Two days later, while the sun was just peeping over the hills, Bob, Dan, and Nelson stood on the deck of the Navigation Company’s steamer, their trunks on board and their bags beside them. On the landing was assembled Camp Chicora in a body, and well in front, in momentary peril of an involuntary bath, stood Tom, a rather doleful Tom, whose eyes never for an instant left the faces of the three on deck.

The line was cast off, the propeller churned impatiently, and the head of the launch swung toward the foot of the lake, the railroad, and home. The departing ones had been cheered separately and collectively, and as the boat gathered way only a confused medley of shouts and laughter followed them. Only that, do I say? No, for as the boat reached the point and the group on the pier was lost to sight there came a final hail, faint yet distinct:

“Gu-gu-gu-good bu-bu-bu-by!”

THE END