“Well, if I had a chance like that I’d never come back again. I’d stay in the woods.”
“Oh, my father wouldn’t let me.”
“I don’t suppose he would, but you could do as I intend to do—run away.”
Henry straightened up and looked at his companion without speaking.
“Oh, I mean it,” said Guy with a decided nod of his head. “I am tired of staying here. I am weary of this continual scolding and fault-finding, and am going to get away where I can take a little comfort. I have always wanted to be a hunter. I have got my plans all laid, and I want some good fellow for a companion, for I should be lonely if I were to go by myself. I’d rather have you than anybody else, and if you will go we’ll take the ‘Boy Trappers’ with us. That book will tell us just what we will have to do. It tells how to build wigwams, how to trap beaver and otter, and catch fish through the ice; how to make moccasins, leggings and hunting-shirts; how to catch wild horses; how to preserve the skins of wild animals—in fact, everything we want to know we will find there.”
“Where do you want to go?” asked Henry.
“Out to the Rocky Mountains.”
“What will you do when you get there?”
“We’ll hunt and trap during the spring and fall, and when summer comes we’ll jump on our horses, take our furs to the trading-posts and sell them.”
“And what will we do during the winter?”