“No, it isn’t likely he’s abroad in the daytime,” Allan replied. “He got something of a scare when we chased him out of here, and I guess he’s lying snug in some old hollow, where he can take up his quarters for the winter. But when night comes, I think he’ll venture out; and once he does, he’ll sniff that scent a mile away; for a bear, like all wild animals, has a great nose for odors.”
“Then we don’t need to go out till after supper?” suggested Giraffe. “Glad about that, too, because I’m some tired.”
“I should think you would be,” Step Hen put in, maliciously; “after that great sprint you did when the little busy bees tried to hand you their cards. If you could only make that fast time in a schoolboy race, you’d be a wonder, Giraffe.”
“Huh! glad you think so, Step Hen,” grunted the other.
Time passed on. The afternoon waned, and supper was cooking; but as yet the absent scouts, with old Eli along, had not returned.
“No use waiting for ’em any longer, fellers,” remarked Giraffe, who, as the shadows gathered, was anxious to be off, for fear lest the bear get to the honey tree, and secure a full supply before they arrived.
“Anyhow, we need not be bothered about Thad who knows how to get around, even if he has to stay out all night,” declared Step Hen.
“Besides, they’ve got old Eli along; and what he don’t know about the Maine woods you could put in a thimble,” remarked Bumpus, not at all averse to attacking the supper Jim had cooked, and which seemed to have a splendid odor.
Accordingly, they sat down, and hurried through the meal. Giraffe kept urging Allan and Jim to hurry up, and in consequence they were all done before it was actually dark.
Giraffe took special pains to look his big rifle over before starting, for he wanted to be able to depend on it when the time came for business. Doubtless the boy could not quite forget the slurs that had been cast on his father’s weapon, when the new up-to-date repeater, with its mushroom bullets, had given such a good account of itself, at the time of the killing of the moose; and he was fully determined that he would equal the score Thad had set, if given a chance.