"Where does it go now?" asked Jack after a while, when they had lost it and were unable to pick it up again.
"That's doing very well for a beginning," commended the colonel. "They went off here, I think to avoid the house, and we are almost there."
A short walk brought them to the shack, which was set in a little clearing in the woods. It was one-story high and about sixteen feet square, with a small kitchen in the back. It was provided with two doors, numerous windows, and had a small porch in front. It was ceiled inside and scantily furnished with a few chairs, a couple of tables and a couch, but the walls were ornamented with the heads of deer and elk, as well as the skins of smaller animals, and the floor was covered with bear and panther skins. Over the big fireplace hung a shotgun with a couple of rifles, and several Indian bows stood in one corner.
CHAPTER VIII
TALKING IT OVER
"I thought you didn't use a stove," remarked Jack, opening his eyes in astonishment at the sight of the colonel's well-appointed kitchen.
"Why not?" asked the colonel, smiling at Jack's surprise. "I don't sleep on the ground from choice, when I have a comfortable bed."
"But, you said—" continued Jack.
"This is a permanent headquarters," the colonel went on. "When I go on a march I don't carry all these things with me. What we don't have we get along without, as part of the day's task."
"That's a grand pair of horns on that elk's head," admired Rand, who was looking at the trophies of the chase that hung on the walls. "Isn't there a story that goes with that?"