"There's no need of it, for we are safe now. It is lucky there is no snow on the ground, for if there was, Oscar could follow us all day. We'll have a few minutes' rest, and then we'll see if we can shoot something for our dinner."
Leon took his seat upon another bowlder a short distance away, and during the ten minutes he remained there he never said a word to his cousin. The latter did not speak to him either. Frank had no breath to waste in words, and Leon was busy with his own thoughts. He was by no means proud of the act he had just performed. He was a bad boy, but he was not wholly depraved, and his conscience smote him when he reflected that he had, in a moment of anger, deprived an industrious, hard-working youth of almost the only means he had of earning a livelihood and keeping a roof over the head of his widowed mother. He knew very well that the ambitious and high-spirited Oscar was not a market-shooter from choice. He followed the business for the same reason that a good many others follow a business they do not like—because he could find nothing else to do, and he was not the one to stand idly by and see his mother suffer for the want of the necessaries of life.
"Father says he deserves a good deal of credit, and that there isn't one boy in a thousand who would do as well as he has done," thought Leon; and then he grew angry again. "What do I care for what father says?" he added mentally. "He is always ready to praise other boys, while for me he has nothing but scowls and cross words. I am glad I killed that old hound, and I am only sorry that Oscar hadn't got a dozen, so that I could shoot them all. He needn't think he owns all the birds in the country, simply because he makes a living by shooting them for market. Are you rested now, Frank? If you are, we'll go on."
The young hunters did not have far to look to find the dinner of which they were in search. The squirrels were busy gathering their winter's supply of nuts, and on almost the first hickory tree they saw, they found three plump little fellows, and bagged them all; two falling to Leon's double-barrel, and the other coming down with one of Frank's bullets through his head. As soon as they had secured their game Leon led the way to the bottom of the deep ravine, where they found a stream of water, beside which they built their fire. The squirrels were roasted on forked sticks over the flames; and when the bones had all been picked clean, and the last morsel of the lunch had disappeared, the truants stretched themselves at full length beside the fire, and listened to the howling of the wind which shook the leafless branches of the trees on the summit of the hills above them, and watched the little flakes of snow that now and then found their way into the ravine.
The snow-storm, that all the weather-wise people in the village had been predicting for several days past, was now raging above their heads; but it did not reach them in their sheltered camp, for the thick screen of evergreens, which lined the foot of the high hills on both sides of the stream, effectually protected them from its fury.
"It is of no use to think of hunting as long as it snows and blows like this," said Leon; "so we may as well stay here."
"I was just thinking of something," said Frank. "Suppose we had found your snares all in order, and a partridge or rabbit in each one of them? What would we have done with the game? It wouldn't have been safe to take it home with us."
"Of course it wouldn't," answered Leon. "We should have exposed ourselves at once. What could we have done with it? I never thought of that before, but there's one thing I have been thinking about all day: What are we going to say to father when we go home to-night?"
"We'll not say anything to him. We'll hide our guns in the barn, and walk into the house as we do every night when we come from school."
"I wish I needn't go home at all," said Leon spitefully. "I could have enjoyed myself to-day if I hadn't been continually haunted by the fear that something is going to happen. I declare, it is growing dark already. What time is it?"