“Did he start in to give you a jawing, too, pard?” Buckhart inquired, with a grin. “Hope you didn’t say ‘dash it’ in his highness’ presence.”
“What’s he doing in that chair on the porch?” Teddy Baxter asked curiously.
“Resting,” Dick explained. “He’s subject to spells of faintness which need—er—stimulant. Painful affliction from childhood, you know. Nothing else helps. When he found there was nothing doing in that line, he asked for a chair upon which to rest his weary limbs and recover from said spell, so I let him take it. He can’t get away with that. It weighs about a ton.”
“Dotty, isn’t he?” Fitz asked, as he leaped down from the fence rail.
“I guess so,” Dick returned. “Either that, or just plain faker. Come on, let’s get busy. We’ve wasted enough time.”
Leaping the fence, they at once plunged into the woods and started in a northerly direction toward the wilder, rocky country beyond, where Farmer Cobmore had told them the partridges were remarkably thick this fall. Already they were planning to get up with the dawn next morning and try for wild ducks at their feeding ground at the upper end of Cranberry Lake.
Andrew Jellison, carrying McCormick’s gun, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. He was pleasant and genial, entering into the conversation now and then in a perfectly natural way, while not thrusting himself forward too much, and was, in short, so totally different in every way from what he had been—ill-tempered and overbearing of manner—the night before, that he scarcely seemed the same man.
It was almost as if a great load had been removed from his mind and the reaction made him as light-hearted and free from care as a boy. Merriwell wondered at the change. Perhaps he had misjudged the man when he credited him with an ulterior motive in intruding upon them. Possibly the man’s nerves really had been worn to a shred and he had wanted nothing more than a little while in the peaceful quiet of the wilderness to brace him up.
There was no question of his ability to handle a gun, nor of his interest and enthusiasm in the pursuit of game. To him belonged the credit of the first bird bagged, and throughout the morning he kept up to the good record he made at the beginning.
For a time they all kept pretty well together. Then, little by little, they split up, each man taking the route which he thought most favorable, having planned to meet at a certain point about twelve o’clock for lunch.