“Why, Rob, you’re a regular wizard!” he broke out with. “It’s that hour exactly. If you had eyes that could see into my pocket like the wonderful Roentgen rays, you couldn’t have hit it closer. I guess you know every star up there, and just where they ought to be at certain times.”
“It’s easy enough to get the time whenever you can see certain stars,” explained the scout leader modestly, “though you wouldn’t hit it so exactly very often as I did then. But as there are some three and a half hours before dawn comes we might as well soak in a little more of that good sleep.”
He showed Tubby how to arrange his blanket, and even tucked him in carefully, with his head away from the fire.
“You’re a mighty good fellow, Rob,” muttered Tubby sleepily, and they heard no more from him until hours had expired and morning was at hand.
There was no further alarm. The singular old bull moose must have wandered into other pastures after that mad break. They neither saw nor heard him again. It was just as well for the same Mr. Moose that he decided not to repeat his escapade, since he might not have gotten off so cleverly the next time, with those scouts on the alert, and their weapons handy for immediate service.
With the coming of morning the three boys awoke, and quickly prepared breakfast. Rob did not mean to go very far on that day. He believed that according to his chart and the verbal information he had received, they were in the immediate vicinity of the deserted logging camp near the border. He intended to circle around a bit, looking for signs that would lead them to it. All the while they could also keep on the alert for any rifle-shot that would indicate the presence of hunters in the neighborhood.
“There’s that railway whistle again,” remarked Andy, pausing while in the act of turning a flapjack, in the making of which he professed to be singularly adroit, so that he seldom lost a chance to mix up a mess for breakfast when the others would allow him.
“Guess the trains must have been passing all through the night, even if I didn’t hear any,” confessed Tubby frankly.
“Do you know, fellows,” asked Andy, since confession seemed to rule the hour, “the first thought that flashed through my head when we were so suddenly aroused in the night by all that row, was that the bridge had been dynamited by the German sympathizers, and the guards shot up sky-high with it. Of course, I quickly realized my mistake as soon as I glimpsed that pesky old moose lighting out, with the red embers of our fire scattered among all the dead leaves, and a dozen little blazes starting up like fun.”
“I wonder has any forest fire ever started in that same way?” ventured Tubby.