But by the time the half-mile was passed they grew more confident. They spoke in ordinary tones, and did not start at the sound of every rustling leaf.
“That’s the last hunt I ever make up there,” said Jim McGovern, turning about and glaring at the mountainous slope as though it had done him a personal injury.
“I’m with you,” replied Tom Wagstaff; “them as like to have their brains banged out by bucks ten feet high or chawed up by bears as big as an elephant are welcome, but not any for me.”
“I feel sort of that way myself,” assented Bob; “it’s the first time I’ve tried it since I was a tot of a boy, but I’ve had enough to last me for the next three hundred and eighty-five years. I hope Uncle Jim won’t ask too many questions about Hero, because he thought a good deal of that hound.”
“He needn’t ever know that he departed this life through a mysterious dispensation of Providence,” replied Jim; “all that it is necessary to learn—and I don’t know that there’s any need of that—is that Hero went off on an exploring expedition and hasn’t yet returned. The particulars of his shipwreck are unobtainable, as is often the case with other explorers.”
“Oh! I can manage it, I’ve no doubt, for I was never yet caught in a scrape that I couldn’t get out of,” was the cheerful response of Bob Budd.
The day was well gone when the three reached their tent at the base of Mount Barclay, and they were glad enough to get back again.
During their absence Aunt Ruth had sent one of the hired men, as was her custom, with a liberal supply of delicacies, which were disposed of in the usual vigorous style of the three, who were honest when they agreed that they had had enough hunting of bears and deer to last them a lifetime.
“If we could only manage the thing without so much work,” said Bob, “we might find some fun in it; but we had to climb up that mountain, which is three times as high as I supposed, and when the danger came, why we hadn’t our usual strength.”
“I think we did pretty well,” replied Tom Wagstaff, “but all the same I don’t believe it would read very well in print.”