"To keep me from slipping," Tom answered, "in climbing over rocks with snow or ice on them."
"But you're not really going to try this thing to-morrow, are you? It will be madness to attempt it."
"Probably," answered Tom. "But madness or sanity I'm going to make the attempt. I don't see anything particularly sane in staying here in camp and trusting to a quart or two of beans to keep life in six already starved boys. I'd rather die trying than sitting still. So I'm going to start at daylight."
There was no use in arguing, particularly as the argument was manifestly all on Tom's side. So all the boys remained silent.
"I'm going to take two guns," said Tom, presently, "the rifle and a shot gun, so as to lose no chance of any game, big or little. I'll pretty certainly lose one of the guns before I get back if I ever get back at all."
Nobody said anything in reply. Tom's remark had been addressed to nobody in particular. Indeed it was rather a reflection out loud than a remark.
Then Tom proceeded to get his ammunition belt ready. The rifle was already loaded in its magazine, with fourteen cartridges. For the shot gun, Tom put into his belt, twenty cartridges loaded with nine buckshot each, and twenty that carried turkey shot—these last for game smaller than deer.
"I'll kill anything I see," he said, presently, "from a skunk to a big buck deer. We are hungry enough now to eat any sort of meat that may come to our hand."
Just then a noise was heard on the snow-covered roof—a noise as of scratching and slipping. Nobody heard it but Tom, but his senses were already in that condition of alertness which the morrow's work would require for its success. So, without saying anything to his comrades, Tom took the rifle, opened the door, and went out to see what the matter might be. He reflected as he did so, that it was probably only some slipping of the snow and ice upon the clapboards, but at any rate he wanted to see for himself the cause of it.
A few minutes later the boys inside the hut were startled by two cracks of a rifle and a heavy fall, just in front of the door. They seized their guns and rushed out, stumbling over something at the door as they did so.