“Hurrah! I’m in for this game!” cried Neal.
“I too,” said Cyrus.
“I’m in for it with a vengeance!” whooped Dol. “Though I’m blessed if I’ve a notion what ‘calling a moose’ means.”
“How much have you larned, anyhow, Kid, in the bit o’ time you’ve been alive?” asked the woodsman, with good-humored sarcasm.
“Enough to make my fists talk to anybody who thinks I’m a duffer,” answered Dol, squaring his shoulders as if to make the most of himself.
“Good for you, young England!” laughed Cyrus.
Herb turned his eyes, and regarded the juvenile Adolphus with amused criticism.
“Britisher or no Britisher, I’ll allow you’re a little man,” he muttered. “Keep a stiff upper lip, boys; we’re not far from camp now.”
A word of cheer was needed. Not one of the trio had growled at their load, but the flannel shirts of the two Farrars clung wetly to their bodies. Their breath was coming in hard puffs through spread nostrils. A four-mile tramp through the woods, heavily laden with raw meat, was a novel but not an altogether delightful experience.
However, the smell of moose-steak frying over their camp-fire later on fully compensated them for acting as butcher’s boys. When the taste as well as the smell had been enjoyed, the rest which followed by the blazing birch-logs that evening was so full of bliss that each camper felt as if existence had at last drifted to a point of superb content.