“Any chance to find him?” asked Frank.
“Oh, yes, there’s a good chance to find him! But you boys can’t get him! No, sir. Been some of the best hunters in these north woods after that fellow, and never any one of them got anything but a chasing. That old fellow knows how to run men the same as he runs other bulls. He’s a terror.”
A short while afterward the boys sauntered away, turning toward the far end of the lake, beyond the hills where they had seen the deer, hoping they might come across the big moose.
But success did not come to them. Several hours they spent trudging through the snow, finally wending their way back to the lake, where they attached their skates to their shoes and made ready for the long return trip.
The heavy wind of the night before had blown the snow from the level plain of the lake’s surface so that it was in great heaps and banks, more especially at the points where the islands stuck their heads out of the lake.
“Wonder why we can’t do some sledding down those hills beyond the camp?” asked Jack Eastwick while they stroked steadily, regularly, heading back across the great expanse of smooth ice.
The idea struck the band of boys favorably, and, as they kept up their regular pace, they made plans for building a long sled for the purpose.
Frank’s find of boards in the shack back of the camp-house was a foundation for their plans, but they had no idea where they could find steel pieces for the runners.
“Don’t need them,” muttered Buster. “We can use plain wood and it win get slick enough after you have used it once or twice.”
“How about bending a piece of hickory or something else for runners?” put by Tom Budd.