With a little laugh Larry jumped up, ran to their pile of plunder, and fumbled in his ditty bag. Then he turned and held up a pipe and a plug of tobacco for Martin to see.
“Will this new pipe do?” he asked, laughing, as he handed Martin the precious articles.
The old man’s eyes were round with astonishment, and his hands trembled with eagerness. They trembled so that he could hardly pare off the shavings of the plug and load the pipe, and light it with the brand that Larry handed him from the fire. But a few whiffs steadied him.
“You see,” Larry explained, “when you told me to put something or other into my ditty bag for luck, I couldn’t think of anything that would be luckier than a pipe and some tobacco for you—just to buy you off some time when you got cranky, you know. So here’s your bribe to keep you good natured about my running off and leaving the camp when you told me not to.”
“Well, this makes twice to-day that you’ve saved my life,” the old man grinned, “so I’ll forgive you. And now pile some wood near me so that I can keep the fire going, and then you crawl into bed and get some sleep. I don’t suppose this moose leg of mine would let me sleep anyhow, but even if it did I wouldn’t waste my time doing it when there was a pipe and some tobacco around. I am almost glad now that the old beast gouged me.”
CHAPTER XI
THE RETURN TO THE WRECK
Martin was in fine spirits when Larry finally crawled out of his sleeping bag and set about getting breakfast next morning. The injured leg was stiff and useless, to be sure, but the acute pain had subsided and did not bother the old man except when he attempted to move. “By to-morrow,” he assured the boy, “I’ll be ready to hit the trail again.”
Larry, with a perplexed look, turned from his work of frying moose meat to see if Martin was in earnest.
“I guess your tobacco has gone to your head, Martin, if you expect to be able to use that leg much by to-morrow,” he said indulgently.
“I don’t expect to be able to use it much by to-morrow,” Martin replied simply, “but we’ll be moving all the same.”