“You fellows had better telegraph some word to your folks to let them know you arrived all right. When we get into the woods it may be some time before you can send a letter out,” he advised.
“I almost forgot,” confessed Ed, guiltily, as he and George followed the agent into the station to send a telegram to their parents.
When they returned, the guide was sitting on the wagon, reins in hand, impatient to start for camp. The boys quickly climbed aboard and found seats on top of the baggage. Ben spoke to the team of wiry little mountain ponies, and with a sudden jerk the wagon started and rattled down the road toward the wall of towering pines at the edge of the forest.
Once in the woods, the road became rougher, and the ponies subsided to a walk. “Hang on there, you fellows!” shouted the guide, each time the wheels dropped into a rut or bumped over the top of a rock. The boys found it great sport, and Ed declared it made him think of stories he had read about Rocky Mountain roads.
A low-hanging hemlock limb swept the cap from George’s head, and Ben stopped the team that he might go back and recover it. George jumped down. He was about to pick up his cap when something went tearing through the woods at the roadside with such a tremendous noise that he half-started toward the wagon in alarm.
Ed grasped the guide by the arm and inquired breathlessly, “What’s that?”
“Don’t get scared so easy,” laughed Ben. “That was only a partridge, or ruffed grouse some call them. You’ll see and shoot lots of them; yes, and eat them, too. Why, look at George, he’s pale yet,” he chuckled.
George had meanwhile recovered his cap and climbed thankfully back to his seat. As they traveled along, Ben told about the bird that had given them their first fright in the woods.
“He has lots of tricks to fool you with, but you fellows will learn them all before you go back home,” he promised.
For some time they bumped along over the rough wood-road in silence, the boys gazing with interest into the deep, somber woods which stretched away for miles on both sides of them. Once George thought he saw some large animal sneaking off between the trees. He pulled Ed excitedly by the sleeve and endeavored to make him see it. They spoke to Ben about it, but he only smiled and said he guessed it was nothing much.