“But then what do we care?” he added, with a laugh; “with plenty of good grub, a warm fire under a snug shelter, and blankets to wrap around us, we can afford to snap our fingers at the cold weather clerk. Let him order out one of those Canada blizzards we’ve heard so much about, if he wants to give the Mountain Boys a run for their money.”
“We must have covered a whole mile after leaving the place where we sat on that log and ate our lunch,” remarked Phil.
“And no creek yet, as far as I’ve seen, Phil!”
“Nothing doing,” admitted the other; “so I think we’d better begin to swing around a little more to the southwest from now on.”
“You’ll try another half mile, you said, didn’t you?” asked Ethan.
“That will be all I care to risk. If the old creek hasn’t cropped up by then we might as well give it up for to-day. Another time I’ll start up from where it flows into the lake.”
“That would be the better way, Phil; you’d make sure then of finding the beaver colony, if it was still there. As we’re going we may even strike the creek below the dam, and have all our extra walk for nothing.”
The woods seemed very still. Even the crows had gone somewhere for the day to find their rations. Early in the morning the boys had seen flocks flying in a certain quarter, and Phil had given it as his opinion they were heading toward a large lake that would not be frozen up so early in the winter, and along the shores of which doubtless crows could pick up plenty of food.
“Looks like I wasn’t going to be treated to that shot at a moose to-day, at any rate,” half grumbled Ethan, who had been considerably disappointed because the animal they had tracked so persistently had failed to turn out to be a bull with towering horns, and a fit subject for his skill with the rifle.
“Other days coming,” Phil told him, consolingly; “and we’ve had a fine tramp on our snow-shoes to boast of, even if I hadn’t secured the snapshots I did.”