“Well, can you blame him?” asked Thad. “Makes me think of the old fable, when the lion and the donkey went hunting together. The lion took up his station at the mouth of the cave where some goats had hidden, while the donkey went in; and made all sorts of terrible noises, braying. So the goats ran out, and the lion killed as many as he wanted. When the donkey came out he asked his partner if he had done the job in good shape. ‘Fine,’ said the lion, ‘and you would have frightened me too, if I hadn’t known that you were only a donkey.’ And that’s the way with us, fellows; we were on to the game in advance, or some of us might have taken to our heels too.”
“Here, that sounds mighty much like you were calling me a donkey,” remarked Davy, trying to display a certain amount of offended dignity.
“Oh! not in the least,” laughed Thad.
“If the shoe fits, put it on,” jeered Giraffe. “You know they say that wherever you see smoke, there’s sure to be fire.”
“Not much there ain’t,” burst out Bumpus, with a grin. “I’ve seen heaps of smoke started, without a sign of a blaze,” and Giraffe subsided into silence knowing what was meant.
“Did you get a good picture, Davy?” asked Thad, as they once more settled down around the fire.
“Seemed like it to me,” was the reply. “It was just when you were all laughing at what Eli here was saying. He had his hand up, like he was going to smack it down in the palm of the other, to emphasize a telling point in his story. Say, wouldn’t it be a great stunt now, if, when I developed that plate, I found a face sticking out of the bushes across yonder; and Jim here recognized it as belonging to that big terror of the pine woods, Cale Martin!”
“Say, that would be just great!” ejaculated Step Hen; and all eyes were turned toward Jim; but that worthy made no remark, though he must have surely heard what was said.
As the evening grew on apace Thad was watching for the chance he wanted, to get a few words in private with the younger guide. Jim somehow had interested Thad from the start. He never said anything about himself or his folks; but somehow the young patrol leader had been drawn toward Jim. He believed the fellow to be a sturdy chap, clean and honest as any guide ever employed by big game hunters in the Maine woods. And now that it began to appear that there was a little mystery attached to his past, of course Thad felt a deeper interest in Jim than ever.
Perhaps it was accident that took Jim off after a while; he may have just wanted to smoke his pipe alone, and ponder on the strange fate that seemed to throw him once more in contact with the man who had crossed his life trail in the past, and apparently not in a pleasant way either. But somehow Thad conceived an idea that Jim just knew he wanted to have a quiet little chat with him; and was thus making an opening.