It was decided to let the dead bodies lay where they were, Pickles cutting off their tails to secure the bounty offered by the authorities for the wolves’ extermination.
It was long past daylight when the camp was reached. While the colored youth prepared the animals shot the others got supper ready.
“Maybe you don’t know whar I was when dem wolves got after us,” observed Pickles, while they were working.
“Where was you?” questioned Andy.
“I hid in de stump ob a dead tree. I had my gun ready fo’ de fust wolf dat showed himself, but dat wolf didn’t cum. Da all knowed better dan to monkey wid de end of my old paralyzer.”
“Pickles would have pickled him,” remarked Boxy, and then they all laughed.
The boys were tired, but not sleepy, and as it was a clear, moonlight night, they sat around the campfire long after supper, talking and singing. Pickles got out his banjo, and made the woods ring with jigs and breakdowns, and the accompaniment to a ditty called “When the Cotton Am a-Bloomin’.” All joined in the chorus of the song, and they kept it up until ten o’clock.
“Now, it’s turn in without delay,” ordered Harry. “Remember, we start off early to-morrow.”
“If it don’t snow like fury,” put in Andy.
“No more snow for a week,” said Boxy. “Just look, the sky is as clear as a bell!”