“Can’t be getting away any too soon to suit me,” Step Hen said.
“The things I’m sorry about are these,” remarked Thad. “First, it’s getting along in the afternoon now, and our chances of overtaking either the men or Bumpus before darkness comes on are mighty small, I’m afraid. You see they’ve got quite a few hours’ advantage over us.”
“Well, why not make a torch or so, and keep moving along, even after night does set in,” suggested Giraffe, quickly, for his mind was always inclining toward fire in some shape or style.
“Now, that may not be such a bad idea at all, Giraffe,” Thad promptly declared. “And I’m glad you mentioned it. If we’re not too leg-weary after we’ve eaten, and rested an hour or two, we might try that scheme.”
“If it didn’t do anything else,” put in Allan, “it would surely cut down the big lead they’ve got on us, and we might be close enough when we started at dawn again, to get Bumpus with the call of the Silver Fox Patrol.”
“Better than that, even,” said Thad, “if we kept moving right along to-night who knows but what we might have the luck to glimpse a camp-fire. Remember how we did that before, and thought to surprise our chum; when it turned out the other way, and we got all the surprise from Hank and Pierre?”
“Whose fire would this be, d’ye think—Bumpus’, or Hank’s?” asked Giraffe.
“Perhaps both,” was the significant reply Thad made. “For unless they’ve changed their minds, and concluded not to meddle with a tenderfoot scout who was able to kill a full grown grizzly all by himself, I take it that before now Bumpus and the timber cruisers have joined forces.”
“Like the lion and the lamb lying down together without the least bit of trouble, because the lamb was inside the lion,” remarked Giraffe, drily.
“Yes, the chances are that they’ve bulldozed our chum, and made him wait upon them like a slave, cook their meals for them; and perhaps they will tie him up in camp to-night, so he won’t have a chance to run away.”