“I guess so. I don’t see how I could help it. Anyway, I held the camera pointed right at them,” replied Walter.
“Guess thet’ll do fer to-night, son,” said Jim, swinging the canoe about. “Shut off th’ jack an’ git out yer paddle. It’s us fer th’ blankets now!”
CHAPTER IX
A SHOT IN THE DUSK
Day breaks in the great forest in a hushed solemnity, as if all nature bowed in silent worship. The very leaves hang motionless. The voices of the night are stilled. The prowlers in the dark have slunk back to their lairs. The furred and feathered folk who people the mighty woodland through all the hours of light have not yet awakened. The peace of the perfect stillness is at once a benediction and a prayer.
It was at just this hour that Walter awoke. There was no sound save the heavy breathing of Big Jim. For a few minutes he lay peering out through a break in the bark wall of the shack. Swiftly the gray light threaded the forest aisles. A rosy flush touched the top of a giant pine and instantly, as if this were a signal, a white-throated sparrow softly fluted its exquisite song from a thicket close by the camp. Another more distant took up the song, and another and another until the woods rang with the joyous matins. A red squirrel chirred sharply and his claws rattled on the bark of the roof as he scampered across. A rabbit thumped twice close at hand. Cautiously raising himself on one elbow Walter discovered the little gray-coated fellow peering with timid curiosity into the opposite lean-to.
As if this were the morning alarm Big Jim yawned, then sprang from his blankets. Brer Rabbit dived headlong for the underbrush, but the guide’s quick eyes caught the flash of bunny’s white tail, and he laughed good-naturedly.
“Why didn’t you invite him t’ breakfast, son?” he inquired.
Walter grinned as he crawled out of his blankets. “Felt too bashful on such short acquaintance,” he replied.
“Prob’ly them’s his feelin’s, too,” said the guide, producing two rough towels from the depths of his pack basket. “Now fer a wash and then breakfast.”