“Here’s where we’ll have to leave the wheels, fellows, and climb the rest of the way,” said Hugh, at about two o’clock that same afternoon.
The four members of the Wolf patrol had concluded that they could save themselves considerable time by making use of their bicycles; it had been Bud’s suggestion, and being duly O.K.’d by the leader, the order went forth to come to the place of meeting prepared for a run along the good road that would take them pretty nearly three-fourths of the way to where they had planned to go.
So, dismounting, they looked for a convenient hiding-place, where the wheels might be considered safe until they came that way again, homeward bound.
Arthur carried his dearly loved camera, with which he had become very expert of late; and, as has been said before, the really fine pictures he was turning out proved that he had a natural bent in that direction worth cultivating. He was forever trying new experiments, and, with the assistance of Hugh, had already managed to obtain quite a few clever photographs of wild animals, such as could be found in that neighborhood. Indeed, they had several times arranged a sort of trap, so that a mink or muskrat in starting to carry off the bait, actually took its own picture by setting off a flashlight cartridge.
As the four boys started up the steep road, talking vigorously about the happenings of the previous day, it was noticed that Hugh was carrying a coil of rope over his shoulder. He had brought it along fastened to the handle-bars of his wheel, and, remembering what he had said about practicing cliff-climbing, Billy and Bud could readily guess what this might be for.
As for Arthur, he seemed so engrossed with what he expected to do in taking a number of views calculated to back up their story about the storm, that he paid no attention to anything else. That was the trouble with Arthur; once he got interested in any particular line of work, he threw his whole energies into it, perhaps to the neglect of other equally important matters.
They were soon climbing the trail that led to the scene of their previous adventure. Billy seemed unusually wideawake on this afternoon, and full of animation. His eyes were on the alert all the time, and if there was a squirrel that leaped from one tree to another in making for its hole, a rabbit that suddenly flashed out of sight among the bushes, or a red-headed woodpecker hammering at some rotten treetop, Billy was the one to discover it first of all.
Several times Arthur manifested a disposition to stop and take pictures. There were trees that had been blown down which seemed to offer an inviting field, and might have made good views; but Hugh advised that he “hold his horses” awhile.
“You can take plenty of pictures of fallen trees whenever you feel like it,” the patrol leader told the artist; “and just now you ought to make every film count for the Wolf patrol. Perhaps you may want to snap off several shots at the wreck of the big hollow oak; and then there are the rocks that made us such a fine shelter. They ought to show up just right in this afternoon sun, for they face the west.”
“I do believe you even thought of that when you agreed to the time for this hike, Hugh,” Arthur returned thoughtfully. “It seems to me you just look away ahead pretty much all the time, and figure things out long before they happen.”