"It seems to apply all right," commented Max, "and come to think of it, Bandy-legs, I guess he is all of that. I never heard of a pet as full of pranks as that cub is; and chances are Toby here will have his hands full looking after him, once he changes owners."
"T-t-try me, that's all!" Toby remarked, with the air of one who had made it a practical business in life to know all about wild animals, and how best to take care of them; having heard the owner mention the sum of ten dollars he felt as though the bargain had already been consummated, and all that remained was for the goods to be delivered.
They loitered there by the spring for some time, and the horse seemed to revive enough to pull through the last stage of the journey. After that Ebenezer would have a long rest of nearly a week; and much of the return trip would prove easier, being down-hill work.
"All aboard again!" called Max, when he thought they might as well be starting ahead, and do some of the resting at the place they had picked out for a camp site. So they continued along the road.
Presently they turned off the main pike, to follow a side road that seemed to lead up into a wild stretch of country. Here an occasional farm might be run across but as a rule there were woods, and then some more woods, until one could tramp for miles and miles through stretches of country where it seemed almost like the primeval wilderness.
Of course most of these trees, though of fair size, were second-growth timber. The avaricious lumberman had long ago been through all this section, and only in patches was it possible to find any of the original great trees that were possibly growing a century or two back, when the whites were wresting this land from the possession of the Indians.
"This begins to look like business," Steve remarked, when they had been following this twisting road for more than a mile; "and I can see why Max chose to bring us up here to do our camping. We'll hardly run across a living soul, unless we go over to that farm to get eggs and milk. And say, let me tell you there's considerable of small game frisking around this neck of the woods."
"I've seen heaps of gray squirrels running up the trunks of trees, and hiding on the far side, as they always do," Max observed.
"And three times a cottontail bounced away, once right under my feet," Bandy-legs added, as his quota of evidence in support of Steve's declaration with regard to their finding all the game they would need, if so be they felt that it would be right to do any shooting so late in the season.
"That was a red fox we saw slinking off a little while back," Steve continued; "and where you find that smart animal depend on it the hunting's good; for he'd clear out if it wasn't."