“My senses! you’re a healthy pair to send for water, ain’t ye? Let’s cruise off and find it. I guess you’ll be wanting a drink of hot coffee, after roosting in them trees for so long.”
Garst led the way to the spring. Its pretty hum sounded like an angel’s whisper through the night, after the tumult of the past scene. Herb fumbled in his leather wallet, brought out a match and a small piece of birch-bark, and kindled a light. With some groping, the kettle was found; it was filled, and the party started for camp.
“I heard the distant challenge of a bull-moose a couple of hours ago,” said the guide, as they went along. “I never suspicioned he was attacking you; but after the camp was a’ ready, and you hadn’t turned up, I got kind o’ scared. I left Neal to tend the fire and toast the pork, and started out to search. I s’pose I took the wrong direction; for I hollered, and got no answer. Afterwards, when I was travelling about the bog, I heard a ‘Coo-hoo!’ and the noises of an angry moose. Then I guessed there was trouble.”
“Won’t Neal look blue when he hears that he was toasting pork while we were perched in those trees, with the moose waltzing below!” exclaimed Dol. “Well, Cy, I’ve won the antlers, and I’ve got my ripping story for the Manchester fellows. I don’t care how soon we turn home now.”
“You don’t, don’t ye?” said the guide. “Well, I should s’pose you’d want to trail up that moose to-morrow, and see what has become of him.”
“Of course I do! I forgot that.”
And Dol Farrar, who had thought his record of adventure and triumph so full that it could hold no more, realized that there is always for ambition a farther point.
Neal did feel a little blue over the thought of what he had missed. But, being a generous-hearted fellow, he tasted his young brother’s joy, when the latter cuddled close to him upon the evergreen boughs that night, muttering, as if the whole earth lay conquered at his feet:—
“My legs are as stiff as ramrods, but who’d think of his legs after such a night as we’ve had?
“I say, Neal, this is life; the little humbugging scrapes we used to call adventures at home are only play for girls. It’s something to talk about for a lifetime, when a fellow comes to close quarters with a creature like that moose. I said I’d get the better of his ears, and I did it. Pinch me, old boy, if I begin a moose-call in my sleep.”