“We ought to each get a big gobbler before we go back home,” Bart said. “You fellows want to look alive. I’ve got mine.”
“You had all the luck,” retorted Ned.
But the gobblers seemed too wise to come within the reach of the boys’ guns, and when it came time to make back-tracks for camp there was none numbered among the slain. Several more rabbits had been secured, however, and the boys were well satisfied.
“My mouth waters for that roast turkey,” exclaimed Ned, as he tramped through the snow. “I want a piece of the breast and some of the brown skin. Just a bit of dressing, please, and a spoonful of gravy!”
“Let up!” cried Bart. “I’m half starved!”
Ned’s anticipations of the turkey were fully realized. It may not have been done just to the turn a French chef would call proper, but the boys thought they had never eaten anything half so good. There was little left when they had finished.
“We’d better circle around so’s to fetch up near where Jim’s to meet us to-night,” remarked Bart as they crawled out of the blankets Wednesday morning. The cold had increased and the wind was blowing half a gale.
The tent was struck, after a hasty breakfast, and, with the other things, not forgetting the game, was packed upon the sled. The boys started off, intending to make a large circle and bring up that evening where Jim had left them, in time to meet him. They would not erect the tent again.
They managed to kill several hen turkeys, another gobbler, which fell to Ned’s gun, and a couple of rabbits, but most of the game seemed to have disappeared, and there was no more in the vicinity of where the boys tramped, dragging the sled after them.
They halted for dinner in a dense part of the forest, and, after the meal, started for the place where the corduroy road ended. They judged it to be about six miles from where they were, and knew it would take them about until night-fall to reach it.