“I guess it would, Bumpus,” said Thad, consolingly, “and sometime, perhaps you’ll have your chance. We all hope you will, anyhow.”
“I’m going to see to it that I do,” grumbled the fat scout; and from his manner one would be apt to think that really life was becoming very tame, and hardly worth having, unless he might find his one great wish gratified.
Bumpus really felt his failure of the preceding night very keenly. It was not often that any of the boys had seen him so sober and sour.
He felt as though a cruel fate had taken pleasure in cheating him out of honors he should have claimed. That ought to have been his bear, by right of first discovery; and also because he had fired both barrels of his Marlin at the beast, and actually knocked him over.
The trouble was, old Charlie did not know enough to stay down; but had persisted in giving them further trouble, until Thad engineered that clever scheme for getting possession of a gun, when immediately the game was up.
Had Thad ever dreamed of what a tenacious hold this newly-acquired desire to shine as a mighty Nimrod, had taken upon the mind of Bumpus, he would certainly have been more careful about leaving the tenderfoot to his own devices.
The morning was still young when Giraffe proposed that they make up a party, to take a look around.
“Who knows but what we might run across a deer; or one of those Rocky Mountain big-horn sheep?” he added, as a clincher to his argument.
“That sounds good to me,” declared Step Hen.
“I’ll go along to help tote your game,” remarked Bob White.