“Even if we did come up on the moose soon,” Jerry observed, keeping his voice low, “I don’t believe I’d be equal to the job of going all the way back to our cabin again this afternoon.”
“Huh! Camp, then!” grunted Bluff.
“If we have to do that, I’ll surely forgive Frank for making me tote my little camp hatchet along, because it will come in handy for chopping firewood, don’t you think so, Bluff?”
“Sure,” was all the other could be induced to say, and he snapped that out as though he had a special grievance against the poor little word.
Jerry looked at him with gloomy brow.
“You’re not very sociable, it strikes me,” he ventured.
“And you’re too much that way,” he was told bluntly. “When you want to hear yourself talk so much, why don’t you hire a hall? But when you’re going to all this trouble to overtake an old bull moose, please, please shut up!”
“I won’t say another word for ten minutes!” declared Jerry, in a huff.
“Make it fifteen and I’ll thank you double,” whispered Bluff.
After that they walked on and on, neither as much as whispering. Bluff, in the lead, was bending part way over, so that his tired eyes could the better see the trail. All that whiteness was beginning to dazzle him considerably. Bluff felt a little alarmed, and hoped that he might not go snow-blind just when they were drawing near the quarry.