“About fifteen miles.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Harry; “pass the kettle, please. Thanks.—Do you think you’re up to that, Hammy?”
“I will try what I can do,” replied Hamilton. “If the snow-shoes don’t cause me to fall often, I think I shall stand the fatigue very well.”
“That’s right,” said the accountant; “‘faint heart,’ etc., you know. If you go on as you’ve begun, you’ll be chosen to head the next expedition to the north pole.”
“Well,” replied Hamilton, good-humouredly, “pray head the present expedition, and let us be gone.”
“Right!” ejaculated the accountant, rising. “I’ll just put my odds and ends out of the reach of the foxes, and then we shall be off.”
In a few minutes everything was placed in security, guns loaded, snow-shoes put on, and the winter camp deserted. At first the walking was fatiguing, and poor Hamilton more than once took a sudden and eccentric plunge; but after getting beyond the wooded country, they found the snow much more compact, and their march, therefore, much more agreeable. On coming to the place where it was probable that they might fall in with ptarmigan, Hamilton became rather excited, and apt to imagine that little lumps of snow which hung upon the bushes here and there were birds.
“There now,” he cried, in an energetic and slightly positive tone, as another of these masses of snow suddenly met his eager eye—“that’s one, I’m quite sure.”
The accountant and Harry both stopped short on hearing this, and looked in the direction indicated.
“Fire away, then, Hammy,” said the former, endeavouring to suppress a smile.