“If you ever have the good or bad luck to run across a forest afire, while we’re up in this section, you’ll see a sight that none of you’ll soon forget,” and he had to cast a meaning glance as he spoke in the direction of the fire worshipper.
But Giraffe only smiled in a satisfied way.
“Talk all you want,” he remarked; “but I think I’ve got that business down fine, now; and to-night, to-night I’m just bound to prove to Bumpus here that the cream is on him. I knew I’d get it sometime.”
“Well, don’t crow till you’re out of the woods,” remarked Bumpus, from the bow end of the canoe. “I’m willing to be convinced; and it’ll be worth all it costs me just to see you work that puzzle out.”
“But you just know I c’n do it, don’t you?” persisted Giraffe.
“Won’t say,” answered the fat boy, obstinately.
“Well, you might as well be counting up your spare cash, because I’m bound to show you at the first chance. It just can’t slip away from me much longer; and I reckon I’ve got it clinched this time,” and after that Giraffe would not talk, but seemed to be muttering to himself from time to time, as though he might be repeating a certain formula that he believed to be the winning combination.
They were not trying to make fast time now, because there was really no necessity for doing so. Having arrived on the chain of lakes that, with the St. Johns river, almost makes a great island of the northern portion of Maine, they were bent on enjoying themselves. That meant going into camp at some point where the guides were agreed they might have the best hunting; and from that time on taking toll of the woods’ folks as their larder required, wasting nothing, and refraining from hunting when food was not needed.
They were true scouts, and believed in following the uplifting principles that govern the actions of the better class of sportsmen. As Step Hen so often declared, they did not want to be called “game hogs,” a term often used to describe the man who flings his catch of bass or trout up on the shore to die, no matter if he is taking ten times what he can use; or who shoots his deer in or out of season, and allows it to lie there, wasted, on the ground, food for the foxes or wolves.
“This country seems to be rather sparsely settled up here?” remarked Thad, after they had been moving along the shore of Lake Winthrop for some time, looking up a desirable camp site.