The boys got out now and then to stretch their legs. Agnes, too, demanded this privilege, and tramped along beside Neale after the sleds on the uphill grades. Mainly the party was warm and comfortable, and cheerful voices, laughter, and song rang through the spruce woods as they traversed the forest-clad hills.
Red Deer Lodge, it proved, was a long day’s journey from the lakeside into the wilderness. Never before had the Corner House girls and their friends visited so wild a place. But they foresaw no trouble in store for them—not even from the gathering storm.
“Of course,” Agnes said, when she was tramping on one occasion with the boys behind the second sled, “there must be bears, and wolves, and catamounts, and all those, in these woods in summer. But they are all hidden away for the winter now, aren’t they, Neale?”
“The bears are holed up,” he granted. “But the other varmints—”
“What are those?”
“That is what Uncle Bill Sorber calls most carnivorous animals,” laughed Neale. “Creatures that prey—”
“Je-ru-sa-lem!” ejaculated the wide-eared Sammy. “You don’t mean to say wild animals pray, do you? I never knew they were that religious!”
“Good-night!” laughed Neale. “I mean those that prey on other animals—live on ’em, you know. Prey on ’em.”
“Je-ru-sa-lem!” murmured Sammy. “Just like the fleas on my bulldog, Buster?”
“That’s enough! That’s enough!” groaned Neale. “No use trying to teach this boy anything.”