“That settles one thing, anyway,” remarked Bumpus. “We ain’t going to starve, as long as we have such mighty hunters as Thad and Giraffe along with us; even if the meat is tough.”
“It settles a number of things,” remarked Giraffe, fastening his “eagle eye,” as Bumpus liked to term those orbs of the tall scout, severely on Step Hen.
“Oh! I know what you’re talkin’ of now,” declared the other, quickly. “It’s all about that rifle of your dad’s, an’ how it c’n shoot. Now, I never said that it couldn’t do the trick, all right. Goodness knows it’s heavy enough for anything. It was you always pokin’ fun at my little thirty-thirty, and callin’ it a popgun, a squirtgun, and all such things. But I take notice, with all that’s said, it took just three bullets for you to kill that poor bear, that was nearly ready to turn up his toes, an’ die from old age; when Thad, he just fired once, and gave a bull moose in a fighting frame, his walking papers. And think how much easier to tote a light gun like mine twenty miles a day. Ask Jim here, and he’ll tell you he means to get one like mine the next time he finds thirty dollars in the road.”
“I suppose that bear is tough, but don’t you say a thing about him being so old he would have soon kicked the bucket You know better than that, Step Hen. Don’t all of us believe that this is the same bear we chased out’n the cabin here, only last night; and say, what did he do to you and Bumpus? Seems to me you wanted us all to know that you’d been thrown ten or twenty feet outside the door, when that poor weakly old sinner as you call him, just breezed past you. Now, that will be quite enough from you, Step Hen. The tougher he was, the more glory for the feller that shot him.”
After this broadside from Giraffe the other scout relapsed into silence; indeed, he could find nothing to say.
“It’s gettin’ pretty late, seems to me,” Bumpus remarked, with a yawn.
“Yes, it is, for kids,” added Giraffe, a little contemptuously; for somehow Step Hen had aroused his fighting blood and he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, daring any one to knock it off.
“But what’s the use waitin’ up to see if Thad gets back?” argued the short scout.
“There’s no use at all,” remarked Allan, just then; “because I think I hear them coming along right now. How about it, Sebattis?”
“Three come, Thad, Davy, Eli,” replied the Indian, gravely; for Allan had first had his attention called to the slight sounds without by noticing that Sebattis was sitting with his head cocked in a listening attitude.