"Well, that one of the moose poking his head between the little trees is a jim-dandy, let me tell you!" declared X-Ray Tyson. "Every wrinkle of his hide shows as plain as it could. And say, here's one showing Ethan and me carrying the litter, with Mazie's daddy on the same. I didn't know you snapped that off."
"You've had great luck so far in all your pictures, haven't you, Phil?" Ethan went on to say.
"No complaints from me," he was told; "and I do feel I've been in great luck, as you say. I've got on the track of a fox, and pretty soon I hope to have his smart phiz along with the rest."
"It'll be a prize collection yet, take that from me," X-Ray announced.
"The funny part of it," continued Ethan, "is the fact that while you'll have all these pictures, most of the originals you've never seen. That comes of fixing it so they press the button, and do the flashlight act themselves."
"Saves a heap of trouble," commented X-Ray, sensibly.
"Of course the main thing is," Phil went on to say, "that you couldn't get that class of Animated Nature picture in any other way. I'd hate to stick it out all night, waiting for Mr. 'Possum or Br'er Rabbit to breeze along, so I could flash him. Besides, the most wary of all, Br'er Fox, wouldn't come within a hundred feet of a human scent. They've got too keen noses for that. And yet I expect to show a fox picture soon."
"I wish I had one of that dandy black fox I trapped last winter, and the pelt of which brought me over a cool three hundred," remarked Ethan; and X-Ray was heard to take a quick breath as though given a little shock; at the same time winking aside toward Phil, who frowned, and shook his head threateningly.
They did not share that enthusiasm with the proud trapper, over that particular foxskin; simply because they knew it was a very poor specimen of its kind, and by rights not worth one-tenth the amount of the check which Ethan had received from the dealer in the distant city—Phil's uncle, though Ethan never dreamed of such a dreadful thing.
"Well, it strikes me you're a pretty clever weather man after all, Phil, because I certainly heard far-away thunder right then," and X-Ray as he said this pointed up at the heavens, which were heavily overcast with dark clouds.