the vicinity, and it had been with the
hope of practically substantiating the discovery that the two elders had
started off that morning.

The boys' first consideration was that of dinner.

"Let's go into the woods and see what we can find!" Bob Arnold suggested
to his chum, after they had watched the canoe disappear round a bend of
the river. "There's only the carcase of a prairie chicken left in the
larder. That won't be much to satisfy our paters when they come back."

"And we'll want to tackle a small morsel ourselves," added Holden. "I've
never had such an appetite in my life until I came West. There's
something inside me that is always calling out: 'Grub! Grub! Give me
grub!'" And the boy sniffed the pine-scented air with relish, as a
hungry street gamin sniffs the fragrance of a cook-shop.

Bob laughed as he strolled back to the tents and stuck a tin dipper into
a wooden pail near by for a draught of cold water that had lately been
taken from a moss-bordered spring.

"You're a freak of Nature; that's what you are, Alf. Two months ago you
were as thin and white as a sheet of paper, and even Saturday's school
resurrection-pie failed to tempt you. Now you are the colour of a
redskin, and nothing is safe from your teeth!"

"I'll not deny that I'm sometimes a bit peckish," returned the younger
boy, entering one of the tents and filling a cartridge belt, which he
proceeded to buckle round his waist. Then he remarked with twinkling
eyes: "Say! Mustn't the fellows at St. Wenford's be green with envy if
they think of themselves swotting away in class while we're having the
time of our lives in the backwoods? They'll all be back by this time,
for the school was only to be closed for seven weeks, the doctor said.
Lucky thing fever is--in some ways."

"In some ways--perhaps," repeated Bob in an undertone that had much
seriousness in it, as he followed his friend's example in preparing for
the hunt. "But it didn't seem very lucky--to me--when--when your dad was
sent for, post-haste, that night. It didn't seem the best of luck
then--to me, I mean."

"Nor to me," added Alf with equal seriousness. Both boys sighed at the
memory, and then the younger resumed light-heartedly: "I tell you what
it was, Bob, I was thoroughly riled with that fever. We always meant to
be chums for the rest of our lives, just like our dads; and it put my
back up to find the fever trying to upset our plans. That's what did it.
Once I got the spi