CHAPTER XII
SCOUTS IN CLOVER
"There used to be a time," Uncle Caleb went on to remark, as he lifted the heavy wildcat, and started toward the door of his cabin, "when I was considered quite a sportsman. I took every opportunity I could to be in the woods and on the water, shooting deer, quail, partridge, snipe, ducks, geese, brant and all such things, for my fancy seemed to run more in the line of small game than grizzly bears or lions, tigers, elephants and the like. But years ago I began to notice a change gradually taking place in my feelings. I suppose many men find the same thing working when they grow older, and the fires of youth are spent. I began to dislike taking life of any sort, and recently I have allowed many a fine chance to make a bag slip by, because I would sooner snap off a picture, and live on canned goods supplied from the store."
Of course none of the boys could fully understand this sentiment. They viewed it from the standpoint of youth, and would never know any different until they too grew old, and their hunting instincts became mellowed.
At the same time they could respect such humane motives, and understand something of the peculiar fascination that taking pictures of wild animals in their native haunts was apt to entail.
"Now to see what a mess the creature may have made of my little cabin home," Uncle Caleb went on to say, as he flung open the door and entered, leaving the body of the late trespasser outside to be attended to later.
The scouts crowded in after him, and looked eagerly around. They found that the cabin in the snow forest was quite a neat affair. Evidently the occupant had gone to considerable trouble and expense to make it comfortable. As he expected to spend most of his time here under this roof, Uncle Caleb believed in having things to suit him, even to a little bathroom off the back, which in summer was supplied with running water from a spring on higher ground, and fed through a sunken pipe, now disconnected on account of the freezing temperature that would have speedily burst it.
There were a couple of bunks built into the walls on either side of the big fireplace, which latter came out several feet into the room. Besides this there was a cot that was also a settee in the daytime, a large table, several comfortable seats that were along the type of the Morris chair Elmer had in his den at home, and various cases of books, curiosities and such things.
Upon the floor were a number of real imported small rugs that Uncle Caleb must have brought from the Orient himself. The boys thought them rather odd, though at the same time pretty; but they were later on staggered when they learned the history of each little carpet, and what a vast sum Uncle Caleb had paid for them in his rôle of collector.
Taken in all, the interior of that cabin was about as far from resembling the average hunter's home as anything could be. Immediately Lil Artha quit calling it the "shack," because forever afterwards with that cheery interior it would appeal more to him in the garb of a miniature palace.