"Give me my game-bag, and I will put the lunch into it. We are all right so far," he said, with a look of relief.
"Oh, there's nothing to be alarmed about," answered Frank, as he unslung the game-bag from his shoulder and handed it to his cousin. "If you had been in such scrapes as often as I have, you would think nothing of it."
"Perhaps not; but I almost wish I had gone to school," said Leon honestly. "What will become of us when father finds out that we have played hookey? That's what bothers me."
"It needn't bother you, for he's not going to find it out," was Frank's encouraging reply. "We'll enjoy ourselves in the woods for a day or two, and then we'll go back to our Latin and geometry again. I'll write the excuse. Don't spoil a good day's sport by worrying over that."
Having put the lunch in his game-bag Leon slung it over his shoulder, picked up his gun, and opening a back door struck out across a wide field that lay between the barn and the nearest piece of woods, closely followed by his cousin.
They walked rapidly, looking back now and then to make sure that they were keeping the barn between themselves and the house, and it was not until they had climbed the fence and plunged into the woods that Leon felt safe from discovery. Then he drew a long breath of satisfaction and slackened his pace.
"If I stood as much in fear of my father as you do of yours, I wouldn't stay with him," said Frank, who seemed to be perfectly at his ease. "I'd run away from him."
It was right on the point of Leon's tongue to tell his cousin that he had long ago resolved to do that very thing; but he didn't say it, for he was not sure that it would be quite safe to trust Frank with his secret.
"I have often thought I should like to go out West and live as those hunters and trappers do," continued Frank. "Wouldn't it be jolly to have a snug cabin somewhere in the mountains, and nothing to do but attend to your traps every day and hunt the big game that is so abundant out there?"
This very thought had often suggested itself to Leon's lively imagination, and he had made up his mind that some day he would live in just that way.