"Huh! Lost, me?" cried Larry, pretending to be very indignant. "Why, after all you've been and told me it would be simply impossible! I'll know where I am every time."
"Oh! yes," laughed Phil; "just like the Indian did, we read about, eh?"
"How was that?" demanded Larry, as he buckled the belt of shells around his generous waist.
"Why, once upon a time an old Indian actually wandered around several days without being able to locate his home. That's pretty hard to believe, but the story runs that way. Then some white men came across him, hungry and tired. They asked him if he was lost, and the old fellow got mad right away. Smacking himself on his chest proudly, he said: 'Injun lost? No, Injun not lost; wigwam lost—Injun here!' And that's the way it would be with you. Now get along, and be sure you bring in the game. I changed the buckshot shells for birdshot; but put these heavy loads in your pocket in case you need them."
So Larry trotted gaily forth. He fancied he looked every inch a Nimrod in his new corduroy suit, and with the gun under his arm, carried in the same way he had seen his chum do it many a time. But then Larry did not know that the hunter who wears an old jacket, with a patch on the right shoulder where a hole has been worn by constant friction from carrying a gun, is most apt to inspire respect in the minds of those who can size the true sportsman up.
Phil was rather sleepy, for he had not secured all the rest he wanted on the preceding night. So he stretched out on the ground, and dozed.
Every little while he would arouse himself, and consult his little nickel timepiece. Tony was busy scraping the hide of the wildcat, and fixing it on a stretcher which he had ingeniously fashioned out of a heavy strip of bark, straightened out flat, and held so by a couple of sticks secured to the back.
"Time that greenhorn was back, Tony," Phil finally remarked, as he sat up. "By the way, did you hear a shot a little while ago, perhaps half an hour?"
Tony said he had, and he could also tell the exact direction from whence it had sprung.
"How far away was it, do you think?" continued Phil, seriously.