canes to the
fire and laid them down, preparatory to beginning work upon them.

"What are you a goin' to do with them canes, Sam?" asked Billy
Bowlegs.

"What do you think, Billy?"

"Dog-gone ef I know," replied Billy.

"Suppose you quit saying 'dog-gone' Billy," said Sam. "It isn't a very
good thing to say, and you've said it thirty-two times this
afternoon."

"Have I? well, what's the odds if I have?"

"Well, it's a bad habit, and if you'll quit it, I'll give you one of
those canes when I get them ready."

"What 'er you goin' to make 'em into?"

"Guns," said Sam, working away as hard as he could with his
jack-knife.

"Guns! what sort o' guns? Powder'd burst 'em in a minute, and besides
we aint got no powder."

"No, but I'm going to make guns out of these canes, and I'm going to
kill something with them too."

"What sort o' guns?"

"Blow guns."

"What's a blow gun, Mas. Sam?" asked Joe, becoming interested, as all
the boy were now.

Sam was too busy to answer at the moment and so Tom, who had seen
Sam's blow guns at home, answered for him.

"He's going to burn out the joints and then make arrows with iron
points and some rabbit fur around the light ends. The fur fills up the
hole in the cane, and when he blows in the end it sends the arrow off
like a bullet. But Sam!" he cried, suddenly thinking of something.

"What is it?" asked the elder brother without looking up.

"What are you going to burn them out with?"

"With that little rod," answered Sam, tossing a bit of iron about six
inches long towards his brother, "I brought it with me on purpose."

"Well, but it won't reach; you've got to reach all the joints you
know, and the rod must be as long as the cane."

"Oh no, not by any means."

"Yes it must, of course it must," exclaimed all the boys in a breath.
"It's just like burning out a pipe stem with a wire."

"No it is not," replied Sam, smiling, "but suppose it is. I can burn
out a pipe stem with a wire half as long as the stem."

"How?" asked two or three boys at once.

"By burning first from one end and then from the other."

"Yes, that's so," answered Sid Russell slowly, drawling his words out
as if he had to drag them up through his long legs, "but that don't
tell how you're goin' to bore out a big cane, fifteen feet long with a
little iron rod not more 'n six or eight inches long."

"Well, if you will be patient a moment, I'll show you," answered Sam,
picking up the bit of i