Part 8 (2/2)
”Oh, well, I don't want to boast, you know, Max, 'cause I might happen to make a foozle out of it. I was only speaking of the hard-hitting qualities of this little double-barreled Marlin of mine, that's all.”
”Well, we must wait and see,” said Max. ”Perhaps you'll make good right in the start; and then, again, something might throw you down. The proof of the pudding's in the eating of it, they say.”
”Oh, I do hope we get a deer, even if it doesn't fall to my gun,” Steve continued to say. ”It'd be too bad now if we spent a whole two weeks up here with Trapper Jim and never tasted any game besides measly squirrel, rabbit, or maybe partridge, if they're still to be had.”
”You forget musquash,” added Max.
”Bah! I _wanted_ to forget it,” declared the other.
”Suppose we knock off talking for a while, Steve,” suggested Max. ”We're coming to one of the places he said we might find deer. And they've got pretty sharp ears, let me tell you right now.”
”But you said we were always hunting up against the wind, so our scent wouldn't be carried to the game,” Steve observed.
”That's true enough, Steve, but even then good deer hunters seldom talk above whispers when they expect to run across game. This is one of the times when we can apply that old maxim we used to write in our copy books at school.”
”Sure, I remember it well,” chuckled Steve, ”'speech may be silver, but silence is gold.' I'm dumb, Max.”
And for a wonder, not another word did Steve utter for over half an hour.
As he was usually such a talkative fellow, this keeping still must have been in the line of great punishment to Steve.
But, then, there are times when the sporting instinct sways all else. And Steve understood that still hunting deer meant a padlock on the lips.
After all, disappointment awaited them.
They put in a solid hour looking over all the territory first mentioned by Trapper Jim, but without starting a single deer.
”They've been around,” Max finally observed, ”and not long ago either, because you can see the tracks as fresh as anything; but it must have been yesterday, because they're not here now.”
”Looky!” exclaimed Steve, ”here's where a five-p.r.o.nged buck must 'a'
rubbed himself against this tree, because there's a big bunch of red hair sticking to the rough bark. Glory! Wouldn't I like to have been about over there by the log when he was doing it. Oh, such a shot!”
”You could hardly have missed him from there,” laughed Max.
”What next?” asked the disappointed one.
”The sun's getting up pretty near the top of its range. That means it's near noon time,” remarked Max.
”And time for grub, eh?” cried Steve. ”Well, I won't be sorry, believe me, for several reasons. First place, I'm hungry as all get-out. Then, again, I'm tired of toting all this stuff around. Say when, Max.”
”Oh, we'll keep on for half an hour more till we come to a stream where we can get a drink. Then in the afternoon we'll circle around some, so as to reach the other promising section Jim told us about. Come on, Steve.”
Nothing rewarded their search; and chancing upon a gurgling creek about the end of the half hour, the two boys found a log to sit down upon.
After eating they rested for quite a spell.
Finally Steve could stand it no longer, but urged his companion to ”get a move on him.” So once again the two hunters walked on.
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