"Splendid, is it not?" breathed Tad, his eyes growing large with wonder.
"Oh, I don't know. It isn't so much," replied Chunky lightly. "I've seen better. We've got bigger mountains in Massachusetts."
"Humph!" grunted Ned Rector, resuming his study of the scene, its beauties intensified by the colors in which the low-lying sun had bathed them.
A shot sounded off somewhere in front of and below them.
"What's that?" exclaimed Chunky, now aroused to sudden interest.
No one was able to answer him.
Soon two more shots followed, and Chunky; was sure that he heard a bullet sing by his head.
Professor Zepplin laughed, saying it was no doubt some one hunting, and that what the boy had imagined was a bullet was merely an echo.
"You no doubt will hear many shots while you are in the mountains. This is a place where people make a business of shooting, and even yourselves will be doing some of it within a few days, if all goes well. Perhaps the shot you heard was from Lige, trying his skill on some bird or animal."
When Lige returned, some little time after, the boys did not observe that he left his rifle in the bushes at the edge of the camp.