“Come here, both of you, and take a look at this track,” he told them.
“Huh! Looks like the spoor of a farmyard cow, only bigger. The cleft in the hoof is there, all right; so if a moose really did make that track, as you say, Rob, then they must belong to the same family of the cloven hoofs.”
“Here’s another bit of evidence, you see,” continued Rob, bent on rubbing it in while about the matter. “In passing under this tree the animal must have scraped his back pretty hard. Here’s a wad of dun-colored hair clinging to this branch. That proves it to be a moose, Tubby.”
“What if the old rascal should take a sudden notion to make another savage attack on our camp?” suggested Andy. “Hadn’t we better get ready to give him a warm reception, Rob? The law is up on moose and deer now, I believe. I’d like to drop that old sinner in his tracks. I’m going to get my gun.”
“No harm in being ready, Andy, though there’s small chance of his returning,” Rob replied. He, too, crept over to where his rifle lay, and secured the weapon. “His fury expended itself in that mad rush, I reckon. He would never dare attack us while the fire is jumping up.”
Nevertheless, the trio sat there for some time on guard. Andy, with the plea for neutrality still before his mind, and recent events down along the Mexican border, as read in the daily papers, occurring to him, called it “watchful waiting.”
“But what are we going to do for a shelter?” bleated Tubby finally, as if once more finding the temptation to sleep overpowering him.
“Oh, we’ll have to do without, and make the fire take the place of a brush covering,” remarked Andy superciliously, as became an old and hardened hunter. “Why, many times I’ve wrapped myself in a blanket, and with my feet to the blaze slept like a rock! I wonder what time it is now?”
While Andy was feeling around for his nickel watch, Rob shot a quick look overhead, to note the position of certain of the planets, which would give him the points he wanted to know.
“Close to three, I should say,” he hazarded, and presently Andy, on consulting his dollar timepiece, uttered an exclamation of wonder.