“What’s that I hear?” exclaimed Bluff, in evident delight. “Sounds like the whack of axes away off there to the left!”
“And there goes a tree down!” added Will, who was staggering along under his weighty pack, though with compressed lips, and a determination not to show any weakness.
“Well, it’s high time we struck somewhere,” grumbled Jerry. “We’ve been on the hike all of three hours and perhaps nearer four. Must have covered a heap of territory in that time.”
“Oh! not many miles,” Frank told him, “because we made up our minds we’d take it easy. But I can see smoke rising above the trees ahead and pretty soon we’ll be at the lumber camp.”
“Anyhow, I’m glad we had a chance to say good-by to that pigpen of a smoking-car, and have been getting fresh air ever since,” Will added.
“Huh! the car wasn’t the worst part of it,” Bluff remarked bitterly. “That Bill Nackerson got on my nerves. I’d just like to see somebody give him the punching he needs.”
“Small good anything like that would do,” Frank told him. “A licking only makes such a man more bitter than before. He is sure to take it out on some person or object that can’t resist.”
“Either poor Teddy, you mean, or the hunting dog,” Jerry suggested. Frank nodded his head to show that this was what he had in mind.
A short time later they found themselves approaching a number of long, low frame buildings that were evidently used by the lumbermen for sleeping and eating quarters. A couple of men were hammering as though engaged in making the new additions more secure against the cold.
Standing in the doorway of what seemed to be the kitchen was a black man. He appeared to be genial, and so Frank led his comrades in that direction.