Knowing that Max had had more or less experience in the line of hunting, Steve was secretly pleased to take lessons. There might be times when Steve was inclined to boast that he knew it all; but when out with Max he felt that this style of bluff would not go.
They headed in the direction the trapper had laid out for them. Since the old man had spent many years around this region it stood to reason that he ought to know a good deal concerning the places where game was most likely to be found.
"Think we'll get one, Max?" asked Steve, after they had been walking for nearly a full hour through the forest.
"It's a toss-up," replied the other; "hunting always is, because you never know whether the game is there or not. And even if you are lucky enough to start something, perhaps you'll fail to bring it down."
Steve laughed incredulously.
"Trust me to do that same," he avowed, "if only I can get my peepers on a five-pronged buck. Think of what I've got in the barrels of my gun, Max, twelve separate bullets in each shell, and propelled by nearly four drams of powder. Wow! I'd sure hate to be the luckless deer that stood up before all that ammunition."
"Especially when the keen eye and sure hand of Steve Dowdy is back of it all," chuckled Max.
"Oh, well, I don't want to boast, you know, Max, 'cause I might happen to make a foozle out of it. I was only speaking of the hard-hitting qualities of this little double-barreled Marlin of mine, that's all."
"Well, we must wait and see," said Max. "Perhaps you'll make good right in the start; and then, again, something might throw you down. The proof of the pudding's in the eating of it, they say."
"Oh, I do hope we get a deer, even if it doesn't fall to my gun," Steve continued to say. "It'd be too bad now if we spent a whole two weeks up here with Trapper Jim and never tasted any game besides measly squirrel, rabbit, or maybe partridge, if they're still to be had."