“Go as far as you please,” said Grant, who had inspected the gun. “Why, this thing isn’t even loaded, and I don’t believe it could be fired if it was.”
With which he pitched the old musket toward Simpson and calmly recrossed the brook.
CHAPTER XVII.
WHAT CARL’S PAIL CONTAINED.
Approaching the camp on their return, the three boys became aware that at least one of their companions was up and stirring, for the clear, ringing strokes of an axe were echoing through the woods in the vicinity of Pleasant Point.
Now there is in the sound of an axe, when heard in timberland, something strangely cheerful and enlivening, especially if the hour be early morning and the sun is in the sky. In a subtle way it seems suggestive of that mysterious time in the practically unknown Dark Ages when man, newly awakened to the knowledge of his superiority over all other animals, came forth from his black cave and built himself a house of wood. There is a joy, too, in the wielding of an axe by strong hands, in swinging it lightly and deftly and driving the blade home, and in the thrill of the yielding shock which passes with each blow from the handle to the fingers that grip it. And as a healthy, strength building, body invigorating exercise, the use of an axe in the open air makes tame by comparison the swinging of Indian clubs, tossing of dumb-bells or yanking at chest weights. As a tonic and a builder of strength and vigor, no doctor’s prescription can equal the use of the axe.
Gray smoke, rising from the point, told that a fire had been started, and near this fire, feeding it, sat Sleuth Piper. Crane appeared with an armful of wood, which he cast upon the ground. Then, perceiving the returning boys, he glowered upon them reproachfully.
“Think yeou’re smart, don’t ye?” he cried. “Think yeou’re smart, sneakin’ off without wakin’ a feller up. Well, what’d ye ketch?”
Sleuth, putting another stick on the fire, did not deign to look around.
“Nothing dud-doing,” confessed Springer, coming up and dropping the empty basket. “I’m afraid grim starvation stares us in the optic. And Piper is to blame for it.”