Part 3 (2/2)
”Only a couple of miles,” replied Dave. He turned to Phil and Roger.
”That's about all,” he whispered. ”Keep it to yourselves.”
”We will,” they replied.
”Somebody else going to carry this hamper?” cried Chip Macklin. ”It's getting rather heavy.”
”I'll carry one end,” said Ben Ba.s.swood.
”And I'll take the other,” added Phil. ”Dave, you and Roger go ahead and bring down a couple of deer, and a bear, and one or two tigers, or something like that,” he continued, with a grin, for he wanted to get Dave's mind off of his troubles.
”Nothing but an elephant for mine,” answered Dave, with a forced laugh.
”I don't want to waste my powder.”
”As the society belle said when she left the mark of her cheek on the gent's shoulder,” remarked Buster Beggs, the fat lad of the group.
”Say, that puts me in mind of another story,” came from Shadow. ”Once on a time a Dutchman heard that a certain lady was a society belle. He wanted to tell his friend about it, but he couldn't think of the right word. 'Ach, she is von great lady,' he said. 'She is a society ding-dong!'”
”Wow!”
”There's a ringer for Shadow!”
”Shadow, you want to frame that joke and hang it in the woodshed.”
”Put it down in moth-b.a.l.l.s until next summer, Shadow.”
”Oh, say, speaking about moth-b.a.l.l.s puts me in mind of another story. A man--”
”Was it a young man, Shadow?” asked Dave, calmly.
”Maybe it was a very old man,” suggested Phil.
”Was he clean-shaven or did he have a beard?” queried Roger.
”Never mind if he was young or old, or clean-shaven or not,” cried the story-teller. ”This man--”
”Was he an American or a foreigner?” demanded Gus Plum. ”That is something we have simply got to know.”
”And if he was knock-kneed,” put in Sam. ”I hate love stories about knock-kneed men. They aren't a bit romantic.”
”Who said anything about a love story about a knock-kneed man?” burst out Shadow. ”I said--”
But what Shadow was going to say was drowned out in the sudden report of a shotgun,-a report so close at hand that it made nearly every student present stop in alarm.
CHAPTER IV-THE SCHOOLBOY HUNTERS
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