“Oh! I just couldn’t stand it much longer!” cried Sandy. “I was really thinking that I’d have to jump overboard, and swim ashore, to try my luck, if father didn’t want to stop the boat, hoping to catch up with you all below, when you hauled in for the night camp.”
Bob looked uneasily at his impulsive younger brother.
“I don’t know whether you are joking when you say that, or not, Sandy,” he remarked; “but it would be a foolish move to make, and would bring more worry to the heart of mother. I hope you won’t think of such a thing at any time. You are getting too big now to let these things have hold of you so much. There are enough troubles to bother our parents without you adding to the burden.”
Sandy turned red, and then burst out into a confused laugh.
“Oh! I only said I was thinking of doing something like that, you know,” he declared; “but that is as far as it would go, I give you my word, Bob. Whenever I catch myself wanting to jump at things so, I remember what Pat said that day we saw the big stag standing knee deep in the water. Too much hurry, too sudden a move, spoils many a good game. And I guess it’s so. I’m trying as hard as I know how to think twice, now, before doing anything.”
“That sounds more like you, Sandy, and I’m glad to hear you talk so,” continued Bob; “but did father say anything about how we were to hunt this afternoon?”
“There is only one thing he insisted on,” the other started to reply, when Bob interrupted him by saying:
“I think I can guess what that was; we must take some one along with us; and of course we’ll be only too glad to do it, since it will be Pat O’Mara, who knows more about hunting, and Indian fighting, and taking all fur-bearing animals in traps and snares, than any three others on board.”
“Just what he said, I declare! Seems like you must have been close enough to hear it all!” exclaimed Sandy, as if surprised; “and yet that couldn’t be, either, for I saw you sitting here all the time I was speaking with father. But I’m glad it’s settled. And I do hope we run across plenty of excitement. It is getting what I call dull, with so little happening.”
To Bob there was so much to see in the new pictures presented with every bend of the winding river, that he never found the time drag on his hands; but then Sandy was made up along different lines, and could not remain quiet any length, of time without getting nervous.