lunch, for they had come upon certain tracks
that told Giraffe there had been an animal of some kind there--he wished
he knew how to tell what species it belonged to, and just how long ago
the tracks had been made.

"And mark me, Bumpus," he said impressively, "I'm going to learn all
those kind of things right away, as soon as I can take my mind off this
pesky fire puzzle. I c'n see how handy it is to be able to read signs
when you're off huntin'. Why, when we start to follerin' these here
tracks, after we've eaten our grub, how on earth do we know whether they
were made a week ago; or if some cow broke loose from a backwoods home
up here, and wandered this way. A nice pair of chumps we'd be, wouldn't
we, if we went and shot up a pet cow, and had to pay damages? I reckon
the boys'd never got over the joke."

"That's just what I was thinking myself, Giraffe," agreed the other, as
he sat down beside the tall scout on a fallen tree, and took out the
lunch from his haversack, for he had carried it all morning, and Giraffe
had let him, too; "if we're going in for this scouting business, we
ought to swallow the whole business. Now, as for learning things
connected with the woods, where could you find any fellers better
qualified to put us straight than we've got in Thad and Allan? What one
don't know, the other sure does. I'm bound to learn the game. Owning
this dandy gun has given me a new idea. I used to say 'oh! what's the
use of bothering, when you've got somebody else to do your thinking for
you?' But now I begin to see that you can't always depend on others.
Right here is a case in point."

As their minds ran about in the same channel the two boys managed to get
along splendidly. Their little differences of the past were, for the
time being at least, quite forgotten; and they seemed drawn toward each
other as two comrades should be.

But both began to complain because thus far neither of them had had
occasion to make use of their gun. If this was a game country, why was
it two such industrious hunters did not get a crack at something,
whether a deer, a moose, or even a fox--anything would have been welcome
as a change from the monotony.

Perhaps Giraffe would have been surprised if told that he and the
puffing Bumpus made quite too much noise to prevent any wary and timid
deer from staying within a quarter of a mile of them. And also that
often they were doing their hunting "down the wind," so that their scent
at