"What for, to shoot the bull if you meet him?" asked scornful Steve.
"Oh! you never can tell," replied the other; "and I noticed that you was mighty careful to lug yours along when you went after fish. Thought a big pickerel'd jump out of the water and chase you, p'raps. Careful how you let fish take a bite out of your leg, ain't you? Well, we might run across some savage animal that'd be a heap worse than a pickerel's sharp teeth."
"I'll carry a gun if you think best," Max remarked; "but as we'll have eggs and milk to tote back with us it might be in the way."
"Just as you say, Max," Bandy-legs continued, nodding to himself in a wise way, as though he had determined on a certain course for himself, which he did not consider it necessary to explain to all the rest.
When the two left camp Steve was climbing a tree with the avowed intention of closely examining the limb from which the smoked meat had been hung.
"A cat, big or little, has got claws," he remarked, as if to explain his actions; "and I guess it might leave some scratches on the bark that would help explain things. Anyhow no harm done trying to see how far my theory will go. Good luck, fellows, and don't you get lost now."
"No danger of that when Max is along," replied Bandy-legs, confidently, as he and his chum strode away.
They knew the location of the farm, because several times that morning there had been borne to their ears the distant barking of a watchdog; and Max had taken special pains to locate the direction from which the sound came. All they would have to do was to keep heading straight into the west until they struck the cleared ground, when the rest would be easy enough.
"The boys have promised to keep the fire going while we're gone," Max told his comrade, as they walked along in company, following what seemed to be a fair trail that led in the right direction, "and to feed it with green wood pretty much all the time."
"Green wood!" echoed Bandy-legs, looking puzzled.