“Nothing of the kind!” said Louise cheerfully. “All you do is to go out with a gun, and stalk till you find a magnificent moose feeding peacefully among the underbrush.”
“Suppose there isn’t any underbrush?” inquired Edith’s languid voice from the table’s other end.
“Then you carry some out with you and scatter it around for the deer to eat out of,” said Louise undisturbed. “Don’t interrupt the lesson on natural history, please. You stand, moved by the beauty of the sight, for a long time. Then, recalled to yourself by the thought of the seven starving little Blue Birds at home, you draw your revolver to your shoulder and are about to fire.”
“Sure it’s a revolver?” asked Winona skeptically.
“Well, your pistol, then—they’re all the same thing. Just then the moose lifts his head and looks at you mournfully out of his large, deer-like eyes. You almost relent. But you nerve yourself and fire—one crashing shot between the eyes. Then you throw the moose across your shoulders and carry it home—and there’s your venison steak.”
“It sounds more like a venison mis-steak to me,” said Winona. “I suppose you’re going hunting to-morrow morning, Louise?”
But Louise had just arrived at her dessert.
“I scorn to reply,” was all she said as she retired into her ice-cream.
After supper the girls lay about on the grass, while Winona and Marie and Mrs. Bryan put slips of paper in a double boiler. The girls drew lots to decide which should be camp cooks and camp orderlies for the first week: four for the cooking, four for buying provisions and policing the camp, and four for the dish-washing and preparing vegetables.
“That leaves one girl over,” spoke up Adelaide, sitting up under a tree.