"That depends a whole lot on how soon Uncle Caleb would think to start out, and how far he has to come to get here," Elmer told him. "The walking is tough enough for us, and yet we're young. He's a pretty old man, Toby says, and might have a harder time of it than we would. But then by noon there ought to be something doing, I'd think."
George had been looking around, and now gave them the benefit of his observations.
"Plenty of wood handy, notice, fellows; if we have to hang out here any length of time, why, we could make a fire, and do our little cooking stunt all right."
"Why, what's getting into George," remarked Toby, pretending to be surprised; "he seems never to get enough to eat. Time was when he had a little bird appetite, but these days he's like a hungry bear all the time."
"I don't know what ails me," George replied, "but it must be going on half rations kind of frightened me, and now I'm thinking something might happen again; so I'm bent on laying in a good supply while it lasts."
"We'll have to look around for a whole herd of deer if you keep on that way much longer, George. And I don't know what your folks at home'll do when you get back again. You'll eat 'em out of house and home, that's right," Lil Artha expressed himself by saying.
George took this chaffing in good part. He was feeling splendidly now, since the danger of their facing real want was of the past.
"Oh! that's all right, boys," he told them. "It was only a little while ago my folks were worried about me eating so little, and I guess they'll sing the other way now. Dad'll talk about going into bankruptcy when he watches me put away the food. Seems like I never could get enough again. I want to eat six times a day, and then complain because meals are so far apart."
"Listen!" exclaimed Lil Artha.
"What did you think you heard?" asked Elmer, after all of them had strained their ears without any result.