By degrees the scouts sought their blankets under the canvas. Thad and Allan were the last to crawl in. The guides had made themselves comfortable near the fire, having blankets with them; and the boys noticed how they all made sure to keep their feet toward the blaze when selecting places for the night. It was the woodsman’s way, because the feet are the first part of the body to feel cold, when, during sleep, the blood fails to circulate as thoroughly as when one is awake, since the heart slackens its functions, in order to get rested for the next day’s labor.
Finally all was quiet. The night wind crooned among the trees; an owl hooted to its mate; but the scouts all slept calmly, with not a fear of danger.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BIRCH BARK CHALLENGE.
“Eli says we’re now in the big game country, fellows!”
Giraffe was rubbing at his gun when he made this remark. They sat about a fire among the pines that bordered the river; and another day had elapsed since we last saw them in camp, at the time of the visit made by the Maine sheriff, and his posse.
“That sounds good to me,” Step Hen observed. “Now, as for myself, I never claimed to be great shakes at doing any hunting; but all the same, I feel a longing to see a great moose standing up before me while I proceed to bore him through and through with my trusty rifle.”
Giraffe laughed scornfully as he continued to rub away with a rag he had greased with vaseline.
“You just take it from me, son, though I’m not a great woodsman myself, that if you ever do shoot that popgun of yours at a full grown moose, the quicker you shin up a good tree, the better. For if you delay, he’s going to help you with his horns.”
“Popgun, nothing,” remonstrated Step Hen; “now, I’d just like to know what you mean by that? I took advice before I had my dad buy me that gun. It was Allan here who told me the good points about it. Just because you carry one of those old-fashioned, big-bore rifles, that carry half a pound of lead, more or less, you think a light thirty-thirty gun is a plaything. But, my friend, investigate, and you’ll discover that it all lies in the ammunition you use, not the bore of the gun. Ain’t that a fact, Thad?”
“It certainly is,” replied the other; “and I’ll prove it when I borrow that new repeating rifle of yours, Step Hen, to try and bring down my moose—when I get a chance to strike one.”