me of smoke arose
from their fire and went straight up like a pillar into the calm air.

"Not now, lad. Work first, talk afterwards. That's my motto."

"But work is over now--the fire lighted and the kettle on," objected
Tolly.

"Nay, lad, when you come to be an old hunter you'll look on supper as
about the most serious work o' the day. When that's over, an' the pipe
a-goin', an' maybe a little stick-whittlin' for variety, a man may let
his tongue wag to some extent."

Our small hero was fain to content himself with this reply, and for the
next half-hour or more the trio gave their undivided attention to steaks
from the loin of the fat buck and slices from the breast of the wild
duck which had fallen to Tolly's gun. When the pipe-and-stick-whittling
period arrived, however, the trapper disposed his bulky length in front
of the fire, while his young admirers lay down beside him.

The stick-whittling, it may be remarked, devolved upon the boys, while
the smoking was confined to the man.

"I can't see why it is," observed Tolly, when the first whiffs curled
from Mahoghany Drake's lips, "that you men are so strong in discouragin'
us boys from smokin'. You keep it all selfishly to yourselves, though
Buckie an' I would give anythin' to be allowed to try a whiff now an'
then. Paul Bevan's just like you--won't hear o' _me_ touchin' a pipe,
though he smokes himself like a wigwam wi' a greenwood fire!"

Drake pondered a little before replying.

"It would never do, you know," he said, at length, "for you boys to do
'zackly as we men does."

"Why not?" demanded Tolly, developing an early bud of independent
thought.

"Why, 'cause it wouldn't" replied Drake. Then, feeling that his answer
was not a very convincing argument he added, "You see, boys ain't men,
no more than men are boys, an' what's good for the one ain't good for
the tother."

"I don't see that" returned the radical-hearted Tolly. "Isn't eatin',
an' drinkin', an' sleepin', an' walkin', an' runnin', an' talkin', an'
thinkin', an' huntin', equally good for boys and men? If all these
things is good for us both, why not smokin'?"

"That's more than I can tell 'ee, lad," answered the honest trapper,
with a somewhat puzzled look.

If Mahoghany Drake had thought the matter out a little more closely he
might perhaps have seen that smoking _is_ as good for boys as for men--
or, what comes to much the same thing, is equally bad for both of them!
But the s