“Listen to the north pole explorer,” mocked Fred. “You’d think, to hear him talk, that he’d been up with Cook or Peary.”
“Well, I’ve got it all over those fellows in one way,” maintained Mouser. “I’ll bet they never had a snowslide come down and cover the shack they were living in.”
“That was a close shave all right,” said Bobby a little soberly, as he thought of what had been almost a tragedy during their recent holiday at Snowtop Camp. “I thought once we were never going to get out of that scrape alive.”
“It was almost as bad when we were chased by the bear,” put in Fred. “We did some good little running that day all right. I thought my breath would never come back.”
“And the running wouldn’t have done us any good if it hadn’t been for good old Don,” added Mouser. “How that old dog did stand up to the bear.”
“He got some fierce old digs from the bear’s claws while he was doing it,” said Bobby.
“He got over them all right,” affirmed Mouser. “I got a letter from my uncle a couple of days ago, and he says that Don is as good as he ever was.”
The train for some time past had been going more and more slowly. Suddenly it came to a halt, although there was no station in sight. It backed up for perhaps three hundred feet, put on all steam and again rushed forward only to come to an abrupt stop with a jerk that almost threw the boys out of their seats.
They looked at each other in consternation.